Slipping on knee-high boots, lacing them at the sides of her ankles, she lifted her gold belt from the heap of her dress and hid the belt about her waist, under doublet and wool shirt. Ready at last, tying an embroidered sash about her waist, she went out to where the earl’s servant waited for her.
“Good!” he said, turning her about, inspecting her, frowning at her legs, which were just a little too fine looking for a boy’s. “Now for your hair.” He took a pair of shears from a pouch at her side.
Alyx took a step backwards, her hand on her long, straight hair. It had never been cut in her life.
“Come on,” the man urged. “It’s getting late. It’s only hair, girl. It will grow again. Better to cut your hair than have it burned, with your head, in a witch’s fire.”
With fortitude, Alyx turned her back to the man and let him have access to her hair. Surprisingly, as it fell away, her head felt strangely light and not at all unpleasant.
“Look at it curl,” the man said, trying to please her, to make light of her horrible situation. When he’d finished, he turned her around, nodding in approval at the curls and waves that clouded about her puckish little face. He thought to himself that the short hair and the boy’s clothes suited her better than the ugly dress she’d worn.
“Why?” she asked, looking at him. “You work for the man who killed my father, so why are you helping me?”
“I’ve been with the lad”—she knew he meant Pagnell—“since he was a babe. He’s always had all he wanted, and his father’s taught him to take what he should not have. I have tried at times to make amends for the boy’s misdeeds. Are you ready?” He obviously didn’t want to discuss the subject anymore.
Alyx rode behind the man on the gentle horse and they set off, staying at the edge of the forest, toward the north. All through the ride the servant lectured her on how she must act to keep her secret. She must walk as a boy, shoulders back, taking long strides. She mustn’t cry or laugh in a silly way, must swear, mustn’t bathe overmuch, must scratch and spit and not be afraid to work, to lift and tote, or turn up her nose at dirt and spiders. On and on he went until Alyx nearly fell asleep, which cost her another lecture on the softness of girls.
When they arrived at the edge of the forest where the outlaws hid, he gave her a dagger to wear at her side to protect herself and told her to practice the use of it.
Once they entered the dark, forbidding forest, he stopped talking and Alyx could feel the tension run through his body. She found that her hands, gripping the edge of the saddle, were white knuckled.
The call of a night bird came softly to them and the servant answered it. Farther into the forest another call and answer were exchanged, and the servant stopped, setting Alyx down and dismounting. “We will wait here until morning,” he said in a voice that was almost a whisper. “They will want to find out who we are before they let us enter their camp. Come, boy,” he said louder. “Let’s sleep.”
Alyx found she could not sleep but instead lay still under the blanket the servant gave her and went over in her mind all that had happened, that because of some nobleman’s whim she was here alone in this cold, frightful forest while her dear father’s life had been cut short. As she thought, anger began to replace her fear as well as her grief. She would overcome this problem and someday, somehow, she’d revenge herself on Pagnell and all of his kind.
At first light, they were back on the horse and slowly made their way deeper and deeper into the maze of the forest.
Chapter Three
AFTER A VERY long time of tiptoeing through the tangle of trees and undergrowth, following no path that Alyx could see, she began to hear voices, quiet voices, mostly male. “I hear the men talking,” she whispered.
The servant gave her a look of disbelief over his shoulder, for he heard nothing but the wind. It was quite some time before he, too, heard the voices.
Suddenly, surprisingly, a deep tangle of growth parted and before them was a small village of tents and crude shelters. A gray-haired man, a deep, old scar running from his temple, down his cheek, his neck and disappearing into his collar, caught the reins of the horse.
“You had no trouble, brother?” the scarred man asked, and when his brother nodded, he looked at Alyx. “This the lad?”
She held her breath under his scrutiny, fearing he’d see her for female, but he dismissed her as not of importance.
“Raine is waiting for you,” the scarred man said to his brother. “Leave the boy with him and I’ll ride out with you and you can give me the news.”
With a nod, the servant reined his horse toward the direction in which his brother pointed.
“He didn’t think I wasn’t a boy,” Alyx whispered, half pleased, half insulted. “And who is Raine?”
“He’s the leader of this motley group. He’s only been here a couple of weeks, but he’s been able to whip some order into the men. If you plan to stay here you must obey him at all times or he’ll have you out on your ear.”
“The king of the outlaws,” she said somewhat dreamily. “He must be very fierce. He isn’t a . . . a murderer, is he?” she gasped.
The servant looked back at her, laughing at her girlish changes in mood, but when he saw her face, he stopped and followed her mesmerized gaze straight ahead of them.
Sitting on a low stool, his shirt off, sharpening his sword, was the man who was unmistakably the leader of any group of men in his presence. He was a big man, very large, with great bulging muscles, a deep thick chest, thighs straining against the black knit hose he wore. That he should be shirtless in January in the cold, sunless forest was astonishing, but even this far away Alyx could see that he was covered with a fine sheen of sweat.
His profile was handsome: a fine nose, black, black hair, sweat dampened into curls along his neck, deep set serious eyes under heavy black brows, a mouth set into a firm line as he concentrated on the whetstone before him and the sharpening of the sword.
Alyx’s first impression was that her heart might stop beating. She’d never seen a man like this one, from whom power came as if it were the sweat glistening on his body. People often said she had power in her voice, and she wondered if it was like the power of this man, an aura surrounding all of his enormous, magnificent body.
“Close your mouth, girl,” the servant chuckled, “or you’ll give yourself away. His lordship won’t take to a lad drooling on his knees.”
“Lordship?” Alyx asked, coming up for air. “Lordship!” she gasped and reason came back to her. It wasn’t power she saw coming from this man, it was his sense that all the world belonged to him. Generations of men like Pagnell had reproduced themselves to create men like the one before her—arrogant, prideful, sure that everyone was destined to be their personal servant, taking what they wanted, even an old, ailing lawyer who got in their way. Alyx was in this cold forest and not at home practicing her music where she belonged because of men like this one who sat on a stool and waited for others to come to him.
The man turned, looking up at them with blue eyes, serious eyes that missed little of what he saw. As if he were a king on a throne, Alyx thought, and indeed he made the rough stool look like a throne, waiting for his lowly subjects to approach. So this was why she had to dress as a boy! This man with his lordly, superior ways, demanding that everyone bow and scrape before him, bend down so he could place his jeweled shoes on their behinds. He was the leader of this group of outlaws and murderers, and how had he gotten that dubious honor? No doubt from all of them believing in the natural superiority of the nobility; that this man, because of his birth, had the right to command them and they, as stupid as criminals must be, did not question his authority, merely asked how low they should grovel before his lordship.
“That’s Raine Montgomery,” the servant said, not seeing the way Alyx’s eyes hardened, a great change from her original softness. “The king has declared him a traitor.”
“And no doubt he well deserves the title,” she spat, still watch
ing Raine as they drew nearer to the man, his strength seeming to pull them toward him.
The servant glanced at her in surprise. “He was once a favorite of King Henry’s and was leading men to the king’s own Wales when Lord Raine heard that his sister had been taken prisoner by Lord Roger Chatworth and—”
“A feud among themselves!” she snapped. “And no doubt many innocent men were killed to feed these nobles’ taste for blood.”
“No one was killed,” the man said, bewildered by her attitude. “Lord Roger threatened to kill Lord Raine’s sister, so Lord Raine retreated; but King Henry declared him a traitor for using the king’s own men in a personal war.”
“Lords!” Alyx snarled. “There is only one Lord and King Henry was right to declare the man a traitor, since he well deserved the title for using our good king’s men for his own personal fight. So now he hides in the forest using the ruffians as his subjects. Tell me, does he kill them at will or is he content with having them serve his dinner to him on silver platters?”
At that the servant laughed, at last understanding her hostility toward Lord Raine. No doubt the only noblemen she’d met were Pagnell and his father. Using them as criteria, she had reason to despise Lord Raine.
“Come sit down,” Raine said, taking the reins and looking up at the weary man on the horse.
Alyx’s first thought was: He can sing! Any man with such a deep, rich voice had to be able to sing. But the next instant her kind thoughts were gone.
“Step down here, boy, and let’s have a look at you,” Raine said. “You look a bit thin to me. Can you do a day’s work?”
Alyx had never ridden astride a horse before, and the new exercise had made the inside of her legs stiff and sore. When she tried to swing off the top of the horse with at least a bit of bravado, her hateful legs refused to obey, and the left one, still hurt from her fall, collapsed under her.
Raine placed a steadying hand on her upper arm, and to Alyx’s chagrin her body reacted instantly to this man who represented everything she hated. “Get your hand off me!” she snarled at him, seeing the surprised look on his handsome face before she had to grab the saddle of the horse to keep from falling. The stupid horse shied away, causing Alyx to stumble again before she could right herself.
“Now, if you are quite finished,” Raine said, his blue eyes alight, that delicious voice of his running across her like melted honey, “perhaps we can find out something about you.”
“This is all you need to know about me, nobleman!” she hissed, drawing the knife at her side, pointing it at him, despising his easy assurance that she meant nothing while he was God’s gift to the earth.
Completely startled by the boy’s hostility, Raine was unprepared for the sharp little dagger lunging at him and barely had time to move away before it cut, not where it aimed, his heart, but the top of his arm.
Stunned at what she’d done, Alyx stood still, her eyes fastened to the slow trickle of blood coming from the man’s bare arm. Never in her life had she hurt anyone before.
But she didn’t have long to think on her rash act because before she could begin to apologize, or before she could even blink an eye, Raine Montgomery had grabbed the seat of her pants and her collar and sent her sliding, face down, across about half an acre of forest floor. She should have closed her gaping mouth because her lower teeth acted as a shovel and collected bushels of leaves, dirt and whatever other filth made the spongy floor.
“Now, you young devil!” Raine said from his place behind her.
Sitting up, using both hands and furiously gouging handfuls of Heaven-knows-what from her mouth, wincing at her sore leg, she looked up to see him standing at what seemed to be quite a distance from her. Between them was a deep, scoured path that had been made by Alyx’s body. And what she saw renewed her anger. Raine Montgomery, that vile nobleman, was surrounded by a disreputable looking crew of men and women, all laughing, showing black, rotten teeth, choking on their tongues, generally enjoying her agony. Raine himself was laughing harder than anyone, and the sight of deep, long dimples in his cheeks emphasizing his mirth did nothing for her temperament.
“Come on,” said a voice beside her, the man who’d brought her, as he helped her stand. “Hold your tongue or he may toss you out altogether.”
Alyx started to speak but paused to remove a piece of stick from its hiding place between her gum and cheek and missed her chance.
The man used this opportunity to speak to Raine, his fingers biting warningly into Alyx’s arm, fairly shouting to be heard over the raucous laughter. “My lord, please forgive the lad. Yesterday a nobleman killed his father and burned his house. He has reason to hate and I fear it extends to all men of your class.”
Instantly, Raine sobered and looked at Alyx with sympathy, which made her stiffen and look away. She did not want his pity.
“What nobleman did this?” Raine asked, his voice full of concern.
“The Earl of Waldenham’s son.”
Spitting in pure disgust, Raine’s face twisted for a moment, his fine lips curling into a snarl. “Pagnell,” he said, his voice full of contempt. “The man doesn’t deserve the title of man or nobleman. Come with me, boy, and I will teach you we’re not all cut of the same cloth. I need a squire and you will do nicely.”
In two steps he was beside her, his arm companionably about her shoulders.
“Do not touch me,” she gasped, jumping away from him. “I do not need your pity or the soft job of serving your sweet cakes. I am . . . a man and I can hold my own. I will work and earn my keep.”
“Sweet cakes, is it?” Raine asked as a dimple flashed in his left cheek. “I have a feeling, boy,” he said, looking her up and down, “you have no idea what work is. You have legs and arms more suited for a girl.”
“How dare you insult me so!” she gasped, scared that she was going to be revealed at any moment, grabbing for her dagger but finding only an empty sheath.
“Another of your mistakes,” Raine said. “You dropped it to the ground.” Slowly, with great show, he removed her little knife from the waist of his hose, those tight, tight hose that clung to his body, a triangular patch loosely tied over his maleness. “I’ll teach you to keep your weapons about you and not discard them so lightly.” Idly, he ran his thumb along the blade. “It needs sharpening.”
“It was sharp enough to cut your thick hide,” she said confidently, smiling back at him, glad she could repay him for some of his self-assurance.
As if just remembering the bloody cut, he glanced at it before looking back at her. “Come with me, squire, and tend to my wound,” he said flatly, turning his back on her as if he expected her to follow him.
Alyx instantly decided that she did not want to stay in this camp at the mercy and whim of this man Raine, who attracted her so yet made her so angry. And she did not like these dirty, greedily staring people who surrounded her, watching as if she were part of a play put on for their entertainment.
She turned to the servant who’d brought her. “I don’t wish to stay here. I will take my chances elsewhere,” she said, turning toward the saddled horse.
“Neither do you know how to obey an order,” came Raine’s voice from behind her, an instant before his big hand clamped on her neck. “I’ll not let a little thing like your terror of me keep me from acquiring a good squire.”
“Get away from me!” she yelled as he pushed her ahead of him. “I don’t want to stay here. I won’t stay here.”
“As I see it you owe me for spilling some of my blood. Now get in there!” he said as he pushed her inside a large canvas tent.
Trying not to cry at the pain in her leg, at the battering her already bruised body was taking, she clutched at a tent pole and tried to stay upright.
“Blanche!” Raine bellowed out of the tent flap. “Bring me some hot water and some linen and make sure it’s clean!”
“Now, boy,” he said, turning back to her and, for a moment, studying her. “You’ve hurt your leg
. Take off those hose and let me look at it.”
“No!” she gasped, backing away from him.
He looked truly puzzled. “Is it me you fear or”—he gave a bit of a smile—“that you’re modest? Oh, well,” he said, sitting down on the cot at the edge of the tent, “perhaps you should be shy. If I had legs like yours I’d be ashamed of them, too. But don’t worry, lad, we’ll put some muscle on your scrawny body. Ah, yes, Blanche, put it there and go.”
“But don’t you want me to dress your wound?”
Alyx looked from her scrutiny of her legs, thinking that they weren’t so bad at all, to see the woman who spoke. Her sensitivity to sound and especially to voices made her look up sharply. The hint of a whine, the begging quality, somehow overridden by a touch of insolence, grated along her spine. She saw a plump woman with stringy, dirty blonde hair, looking at Raine as if she might devour him at any moment.
With pure disgust, Alyx looked away.
“The boy will dress the wound.”
“I most certainly will not!” Alyx said vehemently. “Let the woman do it, ’tis woman’s work and she looks as if she’d like the job.” Smiling, Alyx thought perhaps she might like being a male and not having to do all the thankless drudgery tasks of a woman.
Raine, in one unseen, swift gesture, leaned forward, grabbed Alyx’s thigh in one of his big hands and pulled. As her leg went flying out from under her she landed very hard on her already bruised rump.
“You need some manners as well as muscles. Go now, Blanche,” he said pointedly to the staring woman. When they were alone he turned back to Alyx. “I’ll be forgiving for a few days since you’ve not had a noble background, but if your manners don’t soon improve, I’ll take a switch to that puny body of yours and see if you can learn to behave. The water grows cold, so come and clean this wound and bind it.”
Reluctantly, Alyx stood, rubbing her buttocks, limping a bit on her leg. When she reached Raine, he extended his arm, that large brown muscular arm, blood from shoulder to forearm, for her to clean. As she touched him with the warm cloth she realized how cold her hands were, how warm his skin—and how deep the cut. It did not set well with her that she had hurt anyone like this.