The King's Man

by Elizabeth Kingston

  With that, he turned his attention away from her and toward the fire. It was a neat dismissal, well calculated to make her feel foolish.

  It worked. She pulled the blade away and brought her arm down; after that, she knew not what to do. It was too deep dark to start the journey back to her men. It would likely take all the next day and more, and she was weary to the bone. Nothing would please her better than to eat a hot and enormous dinner, and curl by the fire to sleep until the sun was high next day. The thought of it made her muscles ache all the more.

  “Are you hungry?” he asked gruffly, pulling her out of her fancies. “Pray tell me you are not so witless as to forget to bring rations to last you the hunt?”

  She waited for him to look up at her, irritated that he would imply she would be so foolish. When he did look up, she merely stared at him, her expression one that she had used many times: a quelling look, one that invariably made her men, betimes even her mother, react with a horrified deference as though she had caught them in an act of gravest insubordination. Ranulf of Morency only looked bored. He raised his brows slightly at her, the sharp arch of them over his dark eyes looking villainous in the firelight, and dismissed her yet again with that hint of a smile before he blinked and looked down at her hip. Her hand fell to the purse she wore there, stuffed with provisions. It was not much, but enough to last them both through tomorrow.

  “Good,” he continued. “Then I’ll not have to share mine.”

  He levered himself up to a kneeling position and reached toward the fire where the rabbit dripped juices into the flames. He had to know that she would raise her sword again, but he did not hesitate, nor even tense. She knew he had the knife, but they both knew it was nothing to her own weapon. And so again he made her feel foolish, for brandishing her sword against an all but defenseless man.

  He is not defenseless, she reminded herself as she watched him reach a long arm to the spit. She felt as close to the heat of the fire as he was, though she stood further away.

  And suddenly she was too tired and inexplicably lonely to care whether it was mad to trust him for the length of a meal. She sheathed her sword and the recurring thought rose in her once more, a childish whine that always awaited her at the end of her rope: I don’t want to discover the wisest way, let someone else do it. She lowered herself to the ground and willed herself not to dwell on the stupid resentment.

  The rest of the evening she sat feeling awkward in the silence between them. But Morency remained easy and comfortable, which made her feel even more like a sullen and wrong-footed child as they ate quietly. She said not a word, and it was only when he had finished his food that he spoke again.

  “I do not doubt that I won’t be invited to share watch with you.” He looked infuriatingly smug about that as pulled his surcoat off over his head, leaving his leathern armor and hose to cover him as he fashioned the surcoat into a pillow. He stuffed the material behind his head with a great show of making himself comfortable by the fire. “I confess that I never thought of the convenience in having a guard dog. Was a tiring day, though, and I’ll be happy for a full night’s rest.”

  With that, he closed his eyes. Somehow, she kept herself from cursing him again. Instead, she did as she always did when keeping watch: attended her duties. The first of which, she thought with an uplift of spirit, she would mightily enjoy.

  She walked toward him, up to the warm fire that lit him. He had placed himself close – the night was as cold and damp as the day had been. But light attracted visitors. She kicked dirt onto the flames until it was extinguished, watching the satisfied smirk on his face turn sour in the last light of the glowing embers, and kept that image with her as she took up guard not far from where he lay.

  CHAPTER 7

  It was as they approached a crossroads the next morning, the forest growing less and less dense as they made their way from where they had camped the night, that he felt the fine hairs on the back of his neck prickle to life. He sensed her slowing beside him, too, both of them suddenly alert, poised, listening to the emerging sound of voices nearby. They looked at each other, her hand on the pommel of her sword, as one of the voices reached them, the words clear.

  “…could only see one sword between them, and that in the hands of a boy. Left them not an hour ago.”

  “That’s easy work, and done before noon,” came another voice.

  Ranulf froze immediately at the sound of the voices, but she moved quickly, silently. He watched her step to the side, silent, darting her eyes from him to the ground to seek her footing, then in the direction the voices came from as a third man opined that they could be easily tracked, likely headed for the road – which indeed they were.

  He immediately thought of the dull knife that he still carried, after an argument this morning that he’d thought had gained them only delay. But apparently it had also gained them this unwanted attention. He knew from days of watching her exactly what she carried in the way of arms. A sword, a dagger, a throwing knife tucked into her boot. These, and his dull blade, against an untold and hidden number of what were surely outlaws and thieves, the kind of men who waited in these woods for passing travelers with goods worth stealing. Maybe even that whore he had found yesterday had set these men upon them, eager for coin after she had been interrupted in her trade.

  The Ruardean wench turned her face to him, her slim body drawn taut, signaling danger in every muscle. She held up four fingers, then two – six men in all had she seen, then. They were close by, and to slip away unseen and unheard would be no easy task now. He could feel their intention as well as she obviously could, that the thieves would come toward them any second, heading off to find the spot where they had been discovered this morning. Not twenty steps and they will be upon us, and we with nowhere to go but the open road. The look in her eye told him she thought the same thing and was assessing, considering how best to act in this small moment they had to choose.

  An excellent thing to contemplate, how to save one’s skin. He swiftly turned his own mind to it.

  He could run. It was his first thought. It’s her sword and her armor they’ll want. Run and leave her to contend with them. They were focused on her as easy prey, and their shock would be as great as his own when they realized this “boy” had unexpected skill. It might be easy for him to get away while they tried to subdue her and take her arms. And he could make his way to the town and then to a port and then out of England, out of Edward’s reach.

  Even as his heart beat faster with the thought of flight, she pulled her long dagger from her belt and held the weapon out to him, hilt first. “Take it,” she whispered, with her typical confident command. Her face was resolute as she moved within an inch of his face, her voice no more than a breath between them. “Nor can I know if you will prove treacherous to take this advantage and run, but I trust there is honor in you yet, Sir Ranulf.”

  He found he could not break her look even to glance at the blade she offered. Distantly, he worried that he might have flinched at his knightly title. No doubt she had used it with purpose.

  “Trust and honor?” His spoke as softly as she did, low-voiced among the trees. The words seemed absurd, impossible to believe. As though she had plucked them from a fairy tale to mock him. But her face was serious and stern, her impatient look told him she thought him a fool for still standing there, staring at her.

  “Lack-wit!” She pushed the dagger toward him. “Quickly now, before we are seen. Our only hope is in surprise.” His hand curled around the dagger’s hilt and she immediately turned away, other business to attend to. As though she never thought he might do anything other than fight by her side.

  Trust and honor. By God, the things she put her faith in.

  He wanted to thank her for the token, and mock her foolishness as he ran away. But his feet seemed rooted to the spot, and his hand would not move from the place where she had pressed the dagger-hilt into it. Vivid and immediate, Alice’s face rose in his mind. Not bloodied and
bruised as he had last seen her in life, but smiling in the sun, so real that he thought surely it must be her ghost again, here and now among the trees, as the Ruardean wench moved smoothly to take a knife from her boot.

  There was no time to wonder what it meant, or what he should do, because suddenly the thieves were there, stepping through the trees, their faces comical in reaction at finding their quarry here. There was one who reached for her arm as she pulled out her sword, slowing her just enough for two others to realize what was happening and reach for her too while the others still gaped. Ranulf gaped too, standing idle like a fool while he watched her sink her knife into a man’s hand and free her sword arm. Then she turned her back to the nearest tree and began to fight in earnest.

  She was so fast. It all happened in a breath and they all gathered around her, as though he was not there at all. He could run now. He should run. Now, he thought. But the sight of her beset on all sides, cutting and thrusting, three against one, sent the blood thrilling through his veins, down his arm and through his fingers until the dagger he held felt alive in his hand. The man closest to him was small but wiry, and he carried a sword. In the same moment that Ranulf really noticed him, the man came at him. It was the work of a moment to bring the dagger up and slash across the man’s chest, then pull the sword out of his victim’s other hand as the bloodied man instinctively clutched at his injury.

  After that, it was almost too easy. He had a sword, and the men who were better armed and experienced had set themselves to fight her. Quickly, he inventoried where the men and their weapons were. Three were grouped around the tree where she fought, all had swords. One she had felled with a blow to the head but he seemed to be rousing now as she fought the other two. Nearer to Ranulf, the skinny man he had disarmed lay cringing on the forest floor and now was scrambling to raise himself. He had the look of a man who longed to run, and would. No challenge there.

  That left two more to come at him. One was nothing but tall bones holding a heavy club, coming toward him from twelve paces away. The other was a bear of a man, and Ranulf could only hope he was as stupid as he looked.

  The tall one was too eager and too clumsy, and made it easy to lean left and avoid the club while Ranulf brought his newly won sword up and thrust it in the skinny ribs. He did not wait as the man fell forward, but turned immediately to the wide bear of a man whose only weapons were startlingly massive fists. A quick slice across his knees and he fell to the ground, making it that much easier to drive the dagger deep into his eye.

  He turned to where she fought, her back still to the tree. Now there was only one of the villains left on his feet, and with him she fought frantically. He was good, this outlaw. Ranulf could see it at a glance, and that she was tired. Her arm was not so fast, her breathing labored. Still she could win, if only the first outlaw had not recovered from the blow she’d dealt him. Now he was pulling himself to his feet, coming behind her unseen as she fought. She would lose soon.

  Now is the moment, he thought, now I can flee. The sword was heavy in his hand. He pulled the dagger she had given him free of flesh and felt the blood run down his hand as he watched her struggling, losing. Now. Run.

  The words echoed in his head, but he did not run. He told himself it was a gift from God, this chance to flee, run now run now run run – as he walked toward them unnoticed. He thought it as he watched her mailed fist smash across the face of the outlaw in front of her, and she followed him down to the ground in a heap. He told himself he could still flee now, as the man behind her lifted his sword for a killing blow, eyes fixed on her vulnerable neck bared above the valuable shirt of mail. But still Ranulf kept moving toward her instead of away.

  He told himself to run even as he freed his hand by dropping his own sword, then reached out and grasped the arm poised above her prone body. He thrust the last outlaw’s weapon up and away as he sank the bloody dagger to the hilt in the soft flesh low on the man’s back. It dropped him like a stone.

  Quickly, before he could think too long on it, he reached down and grasped at her back, her tunic and mail shirt bunched into his fist as he hauled her up and set her on her feet. Dirt and leaves and blood and sweat, covering a reddened face that stared in an uncertain shock at him.

  The little clearing was suddenly, jarringly quiet after the noise of the fighting. They stood and blinked at each other until he realized, dimly, that he was waiting for something. From her. He did not know what it was, but it shamed him that she did not say anything. It shamed him more that he wanted her to.

  He turned and retrieved her sword from the ground where she had dropped it, then stepped forward and thrust it in her hand. She looked at him as though he had suddenly sprouted a new nose.

  He could not stop his own smile.

  “Is a fine damsel in distress you make, wench.” He picked up one of the better blades left by the outlaws, and suggested they be on their way with haste, lest there were more villains lurking about.

  She was silently wiping blood from her forehead. They were far from the river now, driven deep into the woods where the only danger, to his eye, was from wild animals. No sooner had he suggested there might be more outlaws than they had heard a poorly imitated bird call. Even now he smiled to himself at the memory of her incredulous expression when she comprehended it was meant to mimic a bird, clearly a signal from the fellows of the party that had attacked them. Two more men or twenty, there was no way to know and so they’d made haste to be gone. They had run long past the point where his lungs burned, finally stopping when he could see she had as much difficulty keeping the pace as he had. Now he leaned against a tree and watched her and waited, warily, for what she might say.

  “My lord,” she said, her voice rough. Her breath had calmed at last from the run they’d taken to outpace the bandits. She had been holding her side and now he watched her hands fall away from her body as she took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. They hung by her sides, all cracked nails and dirt. He imagined them smooth and white, holding a cup to his mouth while the fever burned him.

  He inhaled and smelled damp earth and sweat. He reminded himself where he was and what she was, and tensed in anticipation of what words she might utter. He was sure she would challenge him for the sword he had taken from the one outlaw he’d managed to kill. Or she would accuse him of having fought dishonorably, leaving men dead when they might as easily been injured, bound, and brought to justice. She seemed the sort of sanctimonious fool to lecture about knightly manners and the virtues of a fair fight. Just the thought was enough to make his stomach turn.

  “My lord,” she repeated, not looking at his face. “I give you thanks for my life and my honor.” She blinked, the long lashes fluttering prettily in a contradiction to her stark and uneven face, her harsh voice.

  He didn’t respond, except to curl his hand around the grip of the newly acquired sword. There was a strange feeling in his breast, one he did not know how to name. She was a woman, and he could not be blind to these glimpses of her softness – the pretty lashes, the memory of her soothing hands, the taste of her mouth. But it had not felt like saving a woman, when he leapt in and stopped the blade that would have killed her. Instead, it felt like something new, and different. It felt like a friend. Like he had lent aid to a friend, an equal who would have done the same for him.

  But they were not friends. He had little enough experience of such, but he imagined a certain amount of esteem and admiration was required. And she did not like him, or trust him, or admire him. She would deliver him to Edward, where he wanted least to go. Even now she stood before him, at the end of the chase, covered in sweat and fixing her eyes stoically on his chest. It was clear the thanks choked her.

  He shrugged. “‘Is of no moment.”

  “You fought well, my lord, when they came at me,” she continued doggedly. “Nor will I have my thanks turned aside, when you could so easily have fled and left me to my fate. Had they not killed me, I well know what would have become of me,
did they succeed in my capture. Is the curse of a woman, that her body is made plunder by thieves.”

  He heard himself let out a snort of laughter, feeling her thanks as some new kind of insult. His tongue raced ahead of his thought, eager to cut her in any way he could. “Starved indeed is the man would consider you for rape.”

  Regret, hot and instant, stung him. He heard his own words ringing in his ears even as he tried to deny to himself that he would ever say such things to a lady’s face. Then came the thought, she is not a lady. Then, but she is. And reason piled upon regret and loathing until there was naught but confusion in his head.

  She flinched at his words, and a flush crept up her face. Her jaw clenched noticeably, a tightening of muscles that made her look fierce and even more uncomely. Never had he been so unsure of another person, or of himself. He thought she might reach for her sword and run him through. He could envision it, knew exactly how she would move to cut him down, and he made no move to step aside.

  But she did not move, did not speak. She did nothing but look down at her feet. A great gawking woman, awkward and clumsy to look at. No hint of her grace showed as when she wielded a sword, only thick shoulders on a body too tall for a woman. He began to question, with some wonder, if her flush was more embarrassment than anger.

  How they would laugh at her, the good lords and ladies of Edward’s court.

  “Do we cross their path again, knave’s greed may not spare us, nor fortune.” He could not quite manage a conciliatory tone, not being in the habit of humility, but she did not seem to expect apology. That reminded him, better than his own words had, that he was the villain.

  “Pray, lord, that your flight does not lead us to them again,” she countered coldly. “My men await us, safe escort through these bandit-ruled wilds, but my lord of Morency prefers to travel alone.”