He took the gear from her, hefted the food as well, and then motioned toward the door. Her family could follow or not, as they would. He had no intention of giving Marie and her foolish henchmen any more time to plan an ambush than they had already. With any luck, she and Sir Etienne would be still looking for a stream to wash off the filth of the dungeon.
Colin was momentarily tempted to remain, find the traitors, and punish them appropriately for their treachery, but like as not, the traitors were the dozen who had gone with Marie. Besides, he could afford to waste no more time. After all, he couldn’t defend against an arrow coming from the shadows. The sooner he left and the harder they rode, the safer they would be. He sincerely hoped that young de Piaget was ready to travel. If not, Colin fully intended to leave him behind.
He paused in the courtyard at the touch of a hand on his. He looked down at Aliénore, who was smiling up at him. He tried to smile in return, but he suspected he wasn’t very successful.
“All will be well,” she said.
“I’ll rest easy when his head adorns my gates and she is fertilizing my garden,” he said grimly.
“She would certainly deserve it,” Aliénore agreed. “I daresay my mother was not her first victim. Berengaria said as much.”
He shivered. “What that woman knows ...”
“A pity we don’t have her here to ask about this,” Aliénore said.
“She couldn’t help,” Colin said. “All we need is what I can provide. I don’t envy the fools when we find them.”
“Neither do I,” she murmured.
He patted her back, then watched as the stable master brought their horses. Only it was just one horse he brought. He looked at Colin with consternation.
“The lady Aliénore’s horse is missing,” he said. “Gone.”
No doubt Sir Etienne or one of the lads had it. Colin sighed. “Have you another beast of the same quality? I will pay you well for it.”
The stable master looked over his shoulder and nodded to one of his hands. Another horse was brought, Colin’s purse was lightened, and he dismissed the stable master to quickly pack their gear.
Unfortunately, they weren’t through the gates before her family was riding along behind them. Colin scowled and turned his face forward. There was no hope for secrecy now. They would just have to rely on speed to save them.
That and his sword.
He spared a brief thought for the very pleasant and productive morning he’d spent with his bride. He looked at her to find her watching him with a smile.
It was the same sort of smile she’d been wearing an hour before.
“I am less than pleased about this hasty journey,” he announced.
“I daresay you are,” she said dryly.
“And you aren’t?”
“If you’ll remember, my lord, ’twas I who suggested we might pause for a few days at Solonge and tend our marriage.”
“I had been about to suggest it,” he said archly.
She laughed at him.
Damn her.
He scowled, but it was without much irritation behind it. “I suppose you have it aright,” he admitted unwillingly. “Rest assured, however, that I will make certain in the future that you have ample chance for adequate rests on our journey.”
“You are a most solicitous husband,” she said solemnly.
He grunted at her, spared her one last look, spared one last thought of regret for the comfortable bed they’d left behind at Solonge, and then turned his attentions to the task at hand.
Namely, reaching the priory with everyone intact, especially Aliénore.
Now that he’d finally managed to wed her and bed her, he certainly wasn’t going to allow anyone to take her away from him.
He pitied the souls who might try.
Chapter 37
Sir Etienne stood in the clearing with a dozen grousing fools surrounding him and cursed many things.
Aliénore, that she hadn’t lined his purse.
Berkhamshire, that he’d left his face a bloody mess and his form a bruised and limping wreck.
And lastly, and given his current straits, he cursed most thoroughly Marie of Solonge, for leaving him with a dozen men who were now looking at him as if he held their futures in his hands.
Or at least their hopes of a meal in the near future.
He ground his teeth in frustration. Who would have guessed that he would find himself liberated from the dungeon only to come to this pass?
It was Marie’s fault. Damn the woman to hell, he hadn’t even had a chance to enjoy her. Somehow the vermin in the dungeon had put her off the idea of any kind of amusement. He’d been willing, despite his own abused form. It wasn’t as if she’d had the freedom to be choosy about the location for their encounter!
He supposed he had to thank her for getting him out of the pit and out the gate. They’d ridden as if demons from Hell were after them for several hours, then Marie had called a halt to see to some womanly nonsense of relieving herself in private. Sir Etienne had wondered why she’d needed her horse with her, but that was a woman for you—illogical and frivolous.
Of course, she’d been gone so long that he’d begun to wonder if something had befallen her.
And what had befallen her was a fine bit of riding that had left her nowhere to be found.
Which had left him with a dozen men to feed, house, and placate before they left him dead on the side of the road.
Things would not go well for Marie, did he ever but manage to lay his hands on her again.
The lads were growing restive. Sir Etienne put his shoulders back and searched frantically through his scattered thoughts for something to calm them down. Then he struck upon it.
“Riches,” he said. Such was what soothed him to sleep at night. Surely these men were interested in the same thing.
“Gold?” one asked doubtfully.
“Aye,” Sir Etienne said. “Gold, silver, all manner of things that would bring a man comfort and ease.”
“Where?” demanded another. “We just left our only chance of a steady meal.”
“Aye,” said another. “Not as if we could go back there.”
“Riches are not behind us,” Sir Etienne said, looking off into the forest as if he could see something the men could not. “They lie before us. On a different shore. In the keep of a man who has such wealth, even he cannot count it.”
He listened to himself speak and marveled at his own cleverness. Berkhamshire was rich, that was true. And ’twas another certainty that he wouldn’t be forthcoming with any of his gold here in France.
Perhaps Aliénore would yet serve him.
“A different shore?” asked one man doubtfully. “Which different shore?”
“England,” Sir Etienne said enthusiastically.
He was met with blank stares, then a babble of curses that could likely be heard for leagues.
“Silence,” Sir Etienne commanded. “Will you have all learn of our plans?”
“What plans?” a man said scornfully. “Sounds to me as if you haven’t got a plan.”
Damnation, but would these louts never stop thinking and merely follow? He longed for the time when he would have men about him who would serve him with no argument. He had little patience for peasants pretending to be knights who couldn’t manage coherent thoughts if they were handed them on a fine silver dish.
“I have a plan,” Sir Etienne assured them. “We will go to England, wait for the lord of Berkham, and then sell him something he wants very badly. It will cost him dearly,” he continued. “Perhaps all he owns.”
“Sell ’im what?” asked a man who was currently picking his teeth with his blade. “And when will we eat next? I’m hungry.”
“We’ll sell him back his bride,” Sir Etienne said impatiently, “and that’s all you need to know now. We’re for England as quickly as possible.”
“Dinner first,” said the man with the knife in his teeth. “I can’t go to England on an empt
y belly.”
By the saints, was he going to have to do everything for these fools?
“We’ll go north,” he said, irritated. “We’ll forage inside people’s larders and take what we want. And if you’re too squeamish to do that, you can leave now.”
There was low rumbling, and then many shrugs and loosening of daggers in sheaths. Sir Etienne had a brief moment of panic, which he tramped down immediately and credited to no breakfast, then realized that the lads were for him and merely ready to wreak havoc in the next village they came across—not looking at him as if he might have been quite tasty roasted over a hearty fire.
“To England, then,” he said, then resheathed his sword and mounted his horse. He turned it north.
Or what he hoped was north.
The lads grumbled, but tromped after him readily enough.
To England.
His fortune awaited.
Chapter 38
Ali followed Colin into the priory’s courtyard and was very grateful when she could command her horse to stop moving. The journey from Solonge had seemed endless, likely because she had feared they might be attacked at any moment.
The journey had passed, fortunately, without incident. The only thing of note was the number of times François had looked suspiciously at her gear. How he could possibly recognize his mail shirt when it was under her cloak and had been seriously altered to fit her she didn’t know, but he seemed to. She could scarce wait to tell him what had happened to his sword.
She slipped to the ground and leaned her head against her horse’s withers. Perhaps the beast had had enough as well, for he didn’t move. Ali closed her eyes and listened to the commotion around her: Colin shouting out orders, her brother François bellowing his own orders and then cursing everyone for ignoring him, the voices of nuns who were frantically babbling about something she didn’t understand.
The last finally seeped into her fogged mind and she looked up in surprise. Aye, there were nuns aplenty, and they all looked as if they’d just had a vision of the end of the world. Ali stared at them, open-mouthed, and wondered why Colin’s arrival should cause such a stir.
Then she saw Jason coming across the courtyard, looking worse, if possible, than when they’d left him behind.
“What befell you?” she asked him when he’d drawn close. “And what ails the women?”
“We should speak inside. Tis safer there.”
“Safer?” she echoed. “Why should you worry about safety? Were you attacked?”
“In a manner of speaking.” Jason turned and looked at Colin. “My lord. I see you and our good Henri survived your journey.”
“That,” Colin said, pushing Jason aside and putting his arm around Ali’s shoulders, “is not our Henri. She’s my Aliénore, and I’ll thank you to take your groping hands off her.”
Ali watched Jason look at him in astonishment, then turn the same look on her.
“Well,” he said, a slow smile forming on his face. “I see that things have changed during my brief absence. These are tidings indeed.”
“’Tis a very long tale,” she admitted. “Perhaps better left for when you’re sitting down.”
“I can see he didn’t slay you, at least,” Jason said. “You can’t be displeased with that.”
“I did worse than try to slay her,” Colin said. “I wed the poor girl. Now, move out of my way and find a seat before you fall down. I had assumed you would be far more sturdy than this.” He snorted. “Felled by a pitiful bolt. That Artane constitution is highly overrated.”
Jason only smiled, took Ali by the arm, and dragged her away from Colin. “Feeling very weak all of a sudden,” he threw at Colin as he leaned on Ali. He pulled her toward the guest hall. “I can scarce wait for the tale. Tell me, did he discover it on his own, or did you have to clout him over the head to bring him to his senses?”
“He discovered it himself,” she said, realizing at that moment how much she’d missed Jason and his sunny smiles. “And he’s been quite chivalrous about it all. You would have been impressed.”
“Did he woo you, or merely drag you off to the priest?”
Ali could feel Colin’s eyes boring into the back of her head and she knew he was close enough to hear every single utterance she might choose to make. Not that she would have denied him his due. He had, after all, wooed her all on his own.
“He wooed me, fiercely and in a most manly fashion,” Ali said, hoping she’d put the appropriate amount of reverence into her tone.
Colin made a noise of satisfaction from behind her, so she assumed she’d managed it well enough.
“What, with hours in the lists? Tales of battle and bloodshed before the fire? A demonstration of the proper way to sharpen one’s sword?”
“That and more,” Ali said. She leaned closer to Jason’s ear. “He danced, as well.”
Jason stumbled and Ali almost went with him to the ground. He found his footing and looked at her in astonishment.
“He what?”
“He danced.”
Jason shook his head. “I vow you’re lying. Colin of Berkhamshire cavorting about to music? It is simply beyond my capacity to imagine such a thing.”
Colin was apparently not beyond a show of displeasure. Ali watched as he slapped Jason quite enthusiastically on the back of the head and cursed him thoroughly in the bargain.
“’Tis but the dance of death, done to foul screeching of minstrels,” he said archly. “I am quite graceful, which you would know if you spent more time in the lists watching me and less time rushing about the hall, trying to lift whatever skirts aren’t pinned down with nails to the floor.” He looked at Ali. “His time here has obviously clouded his memory of my stealth and skill. I would remind him now—”
“I am injured,” Jason said, rubbing the back of his head in irritation. “I need no instruction from you at present to further damage my poor form.”
“Later, then,” Colin promised. “Aliénore, if you would see this feeble child into the hall, I will see to everything else.”
Ali nodded, ushered Jason into the hall, and soon found herself seated between Jason and Colin. The nuns were no less agitated, but they soon left to carry on their frantic activity somewhere besides the guest hall. Ali looked at Jason.
“What has been the trouble?”
“I’ll tell you of it, but first I would hear something more of your tale. How was it exactly that this miracle of revelation came about?”
“I merely looked at her,” Colin said archly. “Being quite observant, of course.”
“Of course,” Jason said dryly.
Colin shot Ali a quick look. “There is a bit more to it than that, I suppose, but that more is none of your affair. Ask something else.”
Jason raised his cup in salute. “I’ll have the full tale from Aliénore when you’re off in the lists.” He looked at her and smiled. “Or do you intend to keep to your current garb and occupation?”
Ali shrugged in answer. She supposed she might have looked more convincingly the part of a wife had she been wearing a gown with her hair long and pinned up under a veil, but given that she had no hair to pin up, nor a veil to cover it with, nor even a gown to don, she supposed she would just have to make do with what she’d become.
“I haven’t decided yet,” she said. “I suppose Colin will have something to say about it.”
“Gowns drag in the mud,” was his only response.
Jason smiled, then winced as he shifted his shoulder. “Well, since no more details are forthcoming from you, I’ll give you my tale. The past several hours have surely been more exciting than I would have liked.”
“How so?” Colin asked skeptically. “Find a nun you fancied but couldn’t talk her out of her robes?”
Jason pursed his lips. “What we found was a nun who had been poisoned and a chapel that had been pilfered.”
Ali looked at him in surprise. “How fares the nun?”
“Poorly, given that she’s dead,”
he answered. “Hence the confusion, though I daresay that will calm itself soon enough. The stealing of the sacred relics is something that will trouble them for a goodly time to come, though.”
“How did this all come about?” Colin asked sharply. “Were you robbed outright?”
“Subterfuge instead,” Jason said. “We had a visitor at first light today who wanted to join the good sisters here.”
“But many women seek this kind of life,” Ali said.
“But not many women who go by the name of Marie.”
Ali looked at Colin. “Marie? Do you suppose it is the same? Could she have passed herself off so convincingly?”
“Well,” Jason said, “my constitution might be weak, but my nose works perfectly well. I can smell a liar at fifty paces—”
“Having told several colossal ones yourself, no doubt,” Colin muttered.
Jason glared at him. “I do not lie.”
“And all you brew is healing draughts,” Colin returned.
Jason paused, then shrugged with a smile. “Very well, then, I tell what truth I can. But,” he said, turning back to Ali, “this woman would have called the sky red and the grass blue without hesitation. I spotted her deception instantly.”
“You’re very observant,” Ali said, with a faint smile. “But I knew that about you from the start.”
Colin snorted. “Like as not he merely guessed. That and the wench was no doubt riding in on your horse, Aliénore.”
Jason smiled ruefully. “There was that, as well.”
“What did you do then?” Colin asked.
“Nothing. The good sisters here saw no reason not to take her in and I had no proof that she intended harm. But I vowed to keep watch over her.”
“A bold wench, that one,” Colin muttered.
“Bold enough,” Jason agreed. “I mentioned to her at the morning meal that I was a very close friend of Aliénore’s and had heard many tales of her life at Solonge before she was betrothed, and wasn’t it odd that she, Marie, had the same name as Aliénore’s stepmother? She expressed the proper amount of horror at Aliénore’s troubles, then disappeared into the cloister, where I was not welcome. A pair of hours later, there was word of one of the sisters having fallen ill. Whilst we were investigating that, Marie helped herself to everything of value in the chapel and rode off quite happily.”