Their passing seems to last forever as rider after rider gallops by, the sound of the dirt churned up by their horses’ hooves pattering like rain.
And then, suddenly, they are past us, growing farther and farther away in the distance.
The tightness in my body lessens somewhat, but the stranger does not loosen his hold. He stays pressed tightly against me until we can no longer hear the riders. Indeed, it is so quiet you would not know they had been here at all.
When I finally feel the muscles of his hand across my mouth begin to relax, I ram both elbows behind me where I judge his stomach to be, ignoring the pain as they connect with the chain mail he wears. He grunts in surprise, and I whip my arms up behind my head, grab his arms, and, using my own body as a fulcrum, lever him up and over my shoulder. I feel him leave the ground, feel him become airborne as he flies over my shoulder, then hear a thud as he hits the forest floor.
Chapter Fourteen
TO HIS CREDIT, BUT FOR a faint oomph as the air is forced from his lungs, he gives no cry of surprise or any other sound that might give us away. For one, two, three long heartbeats, I stare down at him.
The darkness does not allow me to see him clearly, so I am left mostly with impressions, and they are not overly comforting. A strong arched nose, a square jaw, and dark eyes beneath dark brows studying me just as intently as I study him.
After a long moment of silence, there comes a creak of leather and a faint jingle of well-oiled chain mail as he rises to his feet. “A simple ‘Thank you for the rescue’ would have sufficed.”
I step back to give him room to rise but also to put additional distance between us. “Except I had no need of rescuing.” I keep my voice pitched low like his, so as not to risk its carrying on the wind. “Indeed, your attempt to help nearly gave me away.”
“It was not I who nearly gave you away, but that hair of yours. It fair shines like a beacon in the moonlight.”
Annoyed, I reach up, grasp the hood of my cloak, and yank it over my head. “There. The threat has passed. You may be on your way.”
“You are wrong if you think the threat has passed. The hunt will roam the area until dawn and could easily double back this way. You will not be safe until the sun is up.”
“What have I to fear? They are not hunting me.”
“Aren’t they, demoiselle?” He takes a step closer and I force myself not to take a step back. “Can you be so very certain of that?”
I do not try to hide my growing annoyance. “Who are they? What manner of men hunt in such a way at night? Have French soldiers landed on our coast?”
“They are not French soldiers.”
I do not know him well enough to tell if that is a smile in his voice, but for some reason I think that it is, which rankles me. It was not so very foolish a suggestion. Before I can come up with something to say to put him in his place, he asks, “Where are you traveling that you must be out on the road so late at night?”
I can think of no reason not to tell him. “Guérande. I have family there. And what of yourself?”
“I am traveling east, along the same road to Guérande. You are cold,” he says. There is a crunch of leaves as he takes another step toward me.
I cross my arms so that the daggers at my wrists are within easy reach. “Yes, well, it is winter and the nights are cold.”
“You cannot risk building a fire. The light and heat will call the hunt back this way.”
“You will be pleased to learn I have no intention of doing anything so foolish.”
“How, then, do you plan to keep warm through the night?”
Gods’ wounds! Could he be any less subtle? Sister Beatriz warned us often of men of his ilk. “Shall I guess at what you will suggest? You think we should close this distance between us so we may share our body heat, no?”
“We would not be the first to do so,” he says.
While I have spent many an hour wondering what it would feel like to lay pressed close against a man, all that curiosity has fled under the weight of my current predicament. I reach openly for my knives, letting my sleeves ride up so that the handles of my daggers show. “I think I will take my chances with the cold, for I am no lightskirt to warm your bedroll. If you attempt such a thing, you will find only the kiss of sharp steel to greet you.”
“I have no intention of forcing you.” He sounds faintly aggrieved. “I wanted only to point out that two are stronger than one and more able to guard against the unexpected, that is all.”
“You would make your camp elsewhere if I ask it of you?” I say flatly, making no attempt to keep the disbelief from my voice.
“No,” he says, and it is all I can do not to crow, but he continues before I can speak. “They will double back at least once before dawn. I cannot in good conscience leave you to fend for yourself until then.”
“I do not need your help. I am well able to defend myself.”
His head tilts to the side. “What manner of maid are you,” he muses, “that you can defend yourself against an entire hunting party? Not to mention heave a man nearly twice your size over your shoulder?”
I open my mouth to proudly tell him of my lineage and use the reputation of Death’s handmaidens to keep him from attempting any mischief, but then hesitate. I have no earthly idea who he is. And as strong and skilled as I am, he is at least twice so, for all that I was able to toss him over my shoulder. He will not be caught off-guard so easily again. I have no idea if Mortain’s name will even be known to him, or known in such a way that he would take it as a deterrent. “I am someone who was raised to be the equal of any man and know well how to defend myself.”
“Against a horde of fourscore or more?”
As many as that? I think, somewhat dismayed. “Of course not,” I snap. “No man can defend against that many.”
He leans back against the trunk of the tree and folds his arms across his chest. I cannot help but remember the rock-hardness of that same chest pressing into my back but moments ago. “Not even if that man is one of their own and therefore has the power to protect you?”
He is one of them? “Why would you do that? Protect me?”
He shrugs. “Let us just say I believe I know the manner of your upbringing and why you claim to be a match for any man. I have a . . . debt I owe to those who raised you, and I would pay some small part of it by seeing you safe.”
His confession robs me of speech and all I can do is gape at him like a caught fish. Who is he that he would owe the convent such a debt? And how did he guess who I was? But I let none of my confusion show on my face. “What manner of men maraud through the countryside eager to do others harm? Surely there are other, better, targets for them to fight. I hear we are recently overrun with French troops. I would suggest they start with them.”