Innocent's Champion

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Innocent's Champion Page 19

by Meriel Fuller


  ‘What, and give up now?’ he challenged her instead, voice laced with steel. ‘After everything you’ve risked to get to this point? Riding through the rain and darkness, disguising your true identity with boy’s clothes?’

  And a night in a cave with you, she thought with a rush. The biggest thing, the only thing I have risked, is my own heart.

  ‘You must keep going, Matilda,’ he urged, scrutinising her anxious features. ‘You have too much to lose if you give up now. We will work out the way together.’

  We will work out the way together. She traced the firm outline of his mouth, the full bottom lip so shocking in the lean, carved planes of his face, then raised her eyes to his. ‘You mean…even though I’m not sure of the way…you will help me?’

  ‘Close your mouth, Matilda,’ he ordered sharply. ‘Is my suggestion that much of a surprise? I said I would help you.’

  ‘Yes, but that was when you thought I knew the way.’

  He laughed, a restrained upward curl to his lips. ‘I never believed that you knew the way, Matilda.’

  ‘Then why…?’

  Why indeed? The question reverberated in his brain, mocked him. Why did he keep her with him, when it would have been so easy to force her back to her brother-in-law, to employ the cool strength and detachment for which he was so renowned on campaign? Because…he lifted his eyes to the scudding clouds, wispy veils against the blue sky…because, in truth, he had become used to her determined little figure at his side. The inadvertent brush of her knee as they rode, the feel of her small hand in his. The press of her near-naked body against his own. The rigid restraints around his heart shifted a little, eased. He couldn’t bear to let her go. Not yet.

  Aghast at his own thoughts, he cleared his throat. ‘Because you have too much to lose.’ He kept his voice deliberately gruff, coarse. ‘I am not such a hard-hearted ogre to leave you here, alone, because you have admitted to something that I suspected anyway.’

  Relief softened her face. Instinctively, she lifted her hand, intending to touch his shoulder, or his chest, she knew not what, to give him a gesture of her thanks, some recognition of his kindness. Without him, without his help, she would be lost, an unwilling slave to her brother-in-law’s outrageous demands. Gilan’s protection gave her the freedom to pursue what she felt was the right thing.

  As she began to raise her hand, he gave a swift, almost imperceptible shake of his head. ‘Matilda,’ he reminded softly, silver eyes drilling into her. ‘Do not forget who watches us.’

  She whirled her head away, down, studying the hard-packed sand with a frowning gaze, dull colour sifting across her cheeks. Standing close to him, hearing the rough murmur of his voice, every nerve ending in her body bristling alert to his presence, she had forgotten where she was and who she was supposed to be.

  * * *

  Farther north, the river flattened out, became shallower, bisecting into a myriad of interlinking channels. Between the channels, small islands had formed, large patches of flat, dry land. As the banks of the estuary moved closer together, the rolling sand dunes gradually disappeared, along with the briny tang of the sea, replaced by a mixture of deciduous trees along the banks: lacy oaks, beech trees drooping their long trailing branches into the water, and spindly ash. The crossing to the other side was obvious, Matilda noted with relief. A series of rickety wooden bridges spanning the deep channels of water, linked one area of dry land with another, like huge stepping stones.

  She led the way, leaning back in the saddle as her mare ambled down from the trees, following a faint track that led to the first bridge. Heat gathered at the back of her neck, beneath her armpits, trickling down the flanks of her torso. The quilted tunic that she wore was more suitable for winter than the thick, oppressive heat of a summer afternoon. It was fashioned from a couple of layers of material with wadding in between. She longed to push the voluminous hood back, longed for the slight breeze to touch her face, to sift through her hair. Dryness scraped her throat and she licked her lips surreptitiously, tasting the salt on her skin. Squeezing her knees into the horse’s rounded flank, she encouraged the animal to mount up on the loose horizontal boards of the bridge, to step across, albeit hesitantly.

  ‘I must admit, I had my doubts about you, boy.’ As she descended the other side of the bridge, she was dismayed to find Henry pulling alongside her. ‘You had us all worried back there—for a moment, I thought you had lost your way.’ His flat face assessed her with a terse smile.

  The gold embroidery on his surcoat glared in the sunlight, flashing painfully into her eyes. She twitched her gaze away, staring determinedly ahead. ‘No, my lord, merely gaining my bearings,’ she replied, keeping her voice deep. ‘It’s some time since I came this way, but I do remember.’

  ‘Good, because I don’t want you leading us astray,’ Henry said, his bloodshot eyes constricting. ‘Into an ambush, for example. There’s a fair few people who would rather see me dead than sitting on the throne of England, people who would pay handsomely for the privilege of seeing me strung up. I wouldn’t want to think that you’d taken money from anyone like that?’ He leaned forwards in his saddle, peering at her closely, trying to read her expression beneath the shadow of her hood. ‘Have you?’

  Sweat broke out across her brow beneath his close scrutiny. Would Henry recognise her? Remember her as the woman he had shared his dinner with at John’s castle? Hopefully he had been too drunk to recall the finer details of the evening. She lifted one hand slowly to bring her hood down more closely around her face. ‘No, rest assured, my lord, no one has given me any money.’

  The scant width of the next bridge forced Henry to drop back, giving Matilda time to catch her breath. But, a moment later, on a flat stretch of land connecting two of the bridges, Henry was with her again. Her heart sank.

  ‘Then do you know the castle where King Richard is supposed to be?’ Henry asked. ‘Clancy Castle? I think it’s not far?’

  Matilda nodded. ‘Yes, it’s not above two hours ride from here.’ She hoped.

  ‘Then we must find a place to stop and rest up for the night,’ Henry said. ‘Any suggestions?’

  ‘All I know is that there’s miles and miles of forest between us and Clancy,’ Matilda responded, hoping it was true. Shifting her eye to the horizon, seeing the mass of trees stretching endlessly, she felt reasonably confident that her suggestion was correct.

  Henry groaned. ‘What, no inn? No manor house? Am I really to sleep out under the stars?’ He stalled his horse, waiting for Matilda to negotiate the last bridge, addressing his last question, plaintively, to the lad’s scrawny back.

  ‘It’s not so bad, Henry, especially in this heat.’ Gilan trotted up beside him. ‘Why risk the foul interior of a rowdy inn, when you can stretch out beneath the oaks?’

  Henry eyed him suspiciously, then switched his gaze back to Matilda, now cantering across the next area of tussocky land towards the final bridge. ‘Where did you find our guide, Gilan?’

  ‘Why?’

  Henry shrugged his shoulders. ‘There’s something not quite right about him. He seems so shifty, always pulling that hood down to cover his face. And his hands! Have you seen them? They look as if they haven’t done a day’s work in their life. So fine and white!’

  ‘I’ll keep an eye on him,’ Gilan promised. ‘I don’t think there’s anything to be worried about.’ But as he tracked Matilda’s slight figure, he realised the clues to her femininity were plain for all to see: the seductive flare of her hips beneath the tight-fitting leggings, visible when her tunic hem flew up at a gallop, and her slim waist beneath the cling of her tunic fabric. It wouldn’t be long before Henry figured out what she was, let alone who she was.

  ‘We’ll make camp tonight, and keep him with us until we have Richard in our sights,’ announced Henry. ‘I don’t want him running ahead and warning our enemy. Th
ere’s something about him that I don’t trust.’

  Chapter Fifteen

  Matilda continued to lead the way on the opposite bank, along a muddy trail that followed the river’s curve, sometimes dipping down to the water’s edge, sometimes rising up into the oak forest and wending its way around the huge trunks. She was confident of her route now: the track was well used, despite there being few travellers on it at this late hour, but her confidence was marred by the fact that Henry was obviously suspicious of her,and watched her closely, attentive to her every move. Even now, he rode immediately behind her, alongside Gilan. Tension pulled at her neck and shoulders and she rolled them forwards, trying to relieve the strain in her muscles. She was so close, so close to finding her brother that she couldn’t afford to slip up now. One more night of disguise, one more night and then she would find Thomas. Once she found him, everything would be sorted out.

  As the sun dipped slowly in the west, sinking below the branches of the oaks across a translucent sky streaked in a riot of pink and orange, the track opened out into a clearing: a loose semicircle of short grass set back from the river, with a small exposed shoreline of muddy stones extending out from the trees where the horses could drink. The ground was level enough for Henry and his men to sleep comfortably.

  ‘You, boy!’ Henry shouted at her, his ruddy face streaked with dust and sweat. He tugged irritably at his surcoat, bunched up beneath his arms. ‘Take the horses to the water whilst we set up camp!’ Jumping lightly from the saddle, Matilda caught the looping bridles, the leather rough against the softness of her palms as the soldiers thrust them into her hands. Not one man gave her a second glance, merely turning away to release the straps on their saddlebags across the horses’ rumps, laughing and joking amongst themselves. Fear raced along her veins as the powerful destriers surrounded her, bundles of pent-up volatility, snorting, pawing the ground, trapping her slight figure within their jostling high-spiritedness. A huge muscled flank barged against her shoulder and she staggered forwards, briefly losing her balance. She straightened, attempting to sort the jumbled reins out with shaking hands.

  Then the horses parted and Gilan appeared before her. ‘Give me some of those,’ he said gruffly. ‘There are too many animals here for you to cope with.’ His hands covered hers, untangling the bridles from her numb, nerveless fingers.

  Her eyelashes fluttered down with relief. She wanted to cry out at his tough presence, the easy way his big shoulders pushed aside the heaving mass of horseflesh. ‘But Henry will…’

  ‘Henry doesn’t tell me what to do,’ he replied shortly. ‘And he doesn’t question what I do, either.’

  Matilda tilted her chin up at him. ‘I thought Henry was your lord,’ she whispered up at him.

  ‘Nay, he does not command me,’ Gilan said. ‘He is my friend. I am here of my own free will.’ He turned away from her, holding more than half the horses. Matilda followed, the animals’ noses nudging eagerly at her spine, keen to reach the water. A slick green algae covered the stones beneath her feet and she slipped, stumbling to keep up with Gilan. At last she stood at his side, securing the very ends of the reins around her wrist so the horses could drop their heads to drink.

  ‘So why are you here at all?’ she asked. ‘Why fight for a cause that isn’t even yours?’

  ‘Because Henry asked for my help,’ he explained, staring out across the river, tracking a couple of black-headed moorhens as they bobbed and dipped in the shallows. The lengthening rays of the sun turned the water to a mirror, the quiet surface reflecting every last particle of light, a lustrous ribbon.

  ‘I always knew you had a heart,’ Matilda teased lightly, glancing around to make sure the other soldiers, and Henry, were safely high up in the forest, far enough away to not hear their conversation.

  His mouth curled upwards at her jest, shadows clouding his face. ‘You’re wrong, Matilda. I’m not the man you think I am. I’m not kind.’ Not after his heart was gouged out on the day his brother died.

  ‘You are,’ Matilda contradicted him. ‘You’ve shown me kindness, when no one else would bother to help. With my sister, with this, without you I would…’

  His heart squeezed at her simple words. ‘Any man with an ounce of chivalry would have done the same.’

  She drew her head up, set it squarely on her shoulders. ‘No, I don’t think so…chivalry means following the rules, but instead you break them and chide convention…’

  He threw her a mocking smile. ‘Just like you, in fact,’ he finished for her, pushing one hand through his hair, sending the silken strands to one side. ‘We’re two of a kind, Matilda. Two lost souls. You are fighting for your home and I am fighting for…’ He stopped. What had he been about to say? That he was fighting for his sanity, for some semblance of normality in his life again? Love? He stared down at Matilda’s vivid face, tilted up towards him, cerulean eyes sparkling out from beneath the shadows of her hood. She seemed to have such faith in him, such belief that he would do the right thing by her.

  As his sentence trailed away, she realised how anxious she was to know his answer. Anxious for any further glimmer of insight into his soul, to find the key that would lift the darkness that shifted across the pewter of his eyes, settling his face into cruel, hard lines. The memories surrounding his brother’s death plagued him, but he was not responsible—surely he could see that?

  ‘What…?’ She cleared her throat to speak, prompted by the terse silence. ‘What do you fight for?

  Words of explanation deserted him. How to explain the hollowness in his heart, the grief that tore at him day after day? He shook his head. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he replied, his voice devoid of tone, blank.

  It matters to me, she thought, her heart skipping suddenly, the beat increasing with a strange emotion. What went on beneath those hard, chiselled features, what thoughts, what fears? But he wouldn’t want to hear such sentiments, or answer her questions. He had made it perfectly clear how he felt about her.

  Gilan dragged his eyes from her face, glancing behind him to the low fringe of trees. ‘Henry is watching us—’ his voice sharpened ‘—and he’s suspicious of you already. Stay with the horses now and I’ll send one of the other soldiers to help you.’

  * * *

  For what seemed the hundredth time that night, Matilda jammed her sweating forehead into the crackling pile of leaves, inhaling the rich, earthy scent of the forest floor. A rawness dragged at her closed eyelids; she was tired, exhausted, but sleep continued to evade her. Fervently willing unconsciousness to consume her, she lay on her front, bundled into a smelly horse blanket that one of the soldiers had chucked at her, fists balled beneath her chest.

  Everything itched: the rough wool of the tunic tickled the back of her neck, the loose waistband of her trousers rucked up around her hips, digging into her flesh. Heat suffused her body—surely it was hotter tonight than it had been during the day? The thickness of the air pressed down on her hips, her spine, coating her skin with a prickly perspiration. The hood remained firmly tugged over her hair, making her scalp even hotter. Twisting irritably on to her other side, she glared out at the sparkling river, splashing and gurgling across the shallows. She longed to rip the dusty garments from her body and dive into those swirling eddies, feel the delicious lap of water against her fevered skin. With her flesh clean and cool, she would, without a doubt, drop off to sleep.

  Set against a velvet-blue backdrop of twinkling stars, the full moon has risen high, bathing the land in a ghostly white sheen, limpid, iridescent. The light was so strong, she was able to pick out the gathered silhouettes of the oak leaves hanging above the water. If only… Matilda licked her lips, swallowing awkwardly, trying to alleviate the parched state of her throat. Maybe if she only went down for a drink, to dip her toes in, to splash her face? That way, if anyone saw her, suspicion would not be aroused. Around her the soldiers slumb
ered, snoring heavily, having eaten and drunk their fill around the campfire earlier. Throughout the evening, Gilan had deliberately kept his distance from her, conversing late into the evening with Henry on the other side of the fire.

  But now, deep in the middle of the night, all was quiet.

  Slowly, she wheeled her body away from the tantalising sight of the river, running her gaze over the blanket-rolled lumps of the sleeping soldiers. All appeared to be fast asleep, including the soldier who had been posted on guard that night. He sat, loosely propped up against the gnarled bark of an oak, his head lolling forwards, snoring gently. His mouth sagged open.

  Of Gilan, there was no sign. She searched for the hint of golden hair poking out from a blanket, but in the shadows beneath the trees it was difficult to spot him. Mentally, she shrugged her shoulders. What would it matter to him, whether she took a bath, or not? Surely he wouldn’t care? As long as she was careful not to be seen, no one would be any the wiser as to her actions.

  Rising slowly, she allowed the blanket to drop off her shoulders and fall to the ground. Instead of standing, she crawled on her hands and knees towards the shrubby undergrowth circling the clearing; the dry leaves on the ground crackled beneath the weight of her palms. Breath caught in her lungs, she forced her body to cover the ground quickly and silently until she was shielded by the thicket of brambles and dogrose. Pushing through the snagging branches, still on all fours, she made her way diagonally, down, down towards the metallic wash of water.

  A pair of boots appeared before her. Large, salt-stained boots, inches from her nose. Gasping with annoyance, she stopped, sitting back on her heels, and thrust her chin stubbornly into the air, prepared to do battle with whoever it was blocked her way.

  Gilan crouched down in front of her, a lopsided smile on his face. ‘Going somewhere?’ he asked mildly. ‘You ought to be more careful, Matilda. I might have been anybody.’

 

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