LordoftheHunt (25 page)

Adam swore. “Hugh, I’ve changed my mind. Stay here and go on
as you should. If anyone asks for me, I’m…in the privy…or swimming. Make
excuses for me—say whatever needs saying. As to Mathilda, tell her to prepare
to go at a moment’s notice. And when I tell you to take her and go, do so
without questions. She’ll likely bedevil your days, but if you want her, have
her.”

“What of Joan? And Nat?”

Adam looked up at the towers of Ravenswood, then to the
hills. “I’ll see to Joan myself. And, aye, to Nat as well. Now, find Mathilda.”

* * * * *

Hugh found Mathilda in her solar. He beckoned her from her
circle of gossiping ladies. “I must speak to you.”

She followed him from the solar. They climbed the steps up
to the battlements and stood looking over the far fields filled with men and
horses preparing for the final tests between the suitors. Hugh wondered if Adam
would ever take the field. It was Adam he saw mounting Sinner and riding off
toward the hills. Going after Joan, he suspected.

“You are very silent. Why did you need to speak to me?”
Mathilda asked.

“Do you wish to wed me?”

“The bishop will not allow it.”

Her voice was a breathy whisper.

“Will you trust me enough to run away with me?”

“I shall fetch my things.”

He grabbed her sleeve as she turned toward the steps. “Not
so hasty. I did not mean this instant. We’d get no farther than those
encampments there.” He pointed to the fields. He hoped the sentries standing
nearby would think they were doing naught but discussing the tournament.

“Then when? My lord bishop will see me pledged and bedded
ere you make a move, Hugh de Coleville.”

“When the time is ripe, the way open, I will tell you. Just
be prepared to go.” He eyed her up and down. “And I want you just as you are.
No encumbrances, no baggage, nothing. Just you.”

“Shall we seal this bargain? Now?”

His heart beat a trifle faster. The throb in his shoulder
intensified. Blood beat in his temples. And lower. “Now?”

“I want you this moment. Follow me.”

He did so, thinking he was as trained to follow her as the
hounds were trained to follow Nat Swan. She passed quickly down the steps to
the lower levels. Servants bowed or curtsied to them as they wended their way
to the physician’s chamber.

The healer looked up and smiled.

“I want you to put a new poultice on Lord Hugh’s wounds,”
Mathilda said.

Puzzled at what she intended, Hugh shrugged out of his tunic
and shirt and allowed the healer to remove his bandages and look over his
wound.

Mathilda stood by, arms wrapped around her waist. Only the
soft tap, tap of her small foot betrayed her impatience with the man’s careful
inspection.

When the bandages were set in place she said, “Now, I want
you to go to the gatehouse and see to the wounds of a man called Del. Tell them
you come in my name.”

“Aye, my lady,” the healer said. He picked up a basket and
moved slowly about the room, gathering what he needed.

When the healer was gone, Mathilda shoved the man’s table
across the door to bar its way.

“A clever way to get me naked,” Hugh said, one hand to his
freshly bandaged shoulder.

“In truth, I thought less of your nakedness than I did of
your wounds. I would not want to overtax you.”

She put her hands on his hips. “And you are not but half
naked.” She helped him remove the rest of his clothing, and he helped her out
of hers.

She was all gold in the light of the healer’s many candles.
Her perfume still reached him despite the hanging herbs and bowls of mysterious
concoctions. His cock stood up as stiff and alert as a sentry on the ramparts.

Her hand was warm and soft when she wrapped it around him
and began to stroke him.

“I’ve wanted you since I was ten and two,” she said. “Since
ever I saw you.”

“I’ve wanted you since…well…” She dropped onto her knees
before him. “Since a few days ago.” He gasped as she nipped his manhood. “As
you wish. I have wanted you since almost as long.”

She sighed in a whisper of warm breath on his skin. He
pulled away lest he make a fool of himself and find release without offering
her even a modicum of satisfaction.

She hopped onto the table and held out her arms, spreading
her legs. “You once asked me how many swords I’ve known. I think you must
understand I’ve played the harlot since Richard died.”

He slid into her and held her close against his chest. There
was nothing to say.

“I was lonely, but ‘tis no excuse for wantonness, is it?”
she asked.

“Aye, it is, my love. And I’ve not been living in a monk’s
cell, myself. Hush and make no more confessions. The past is the past. Just
know you’ll polish only one sword from this moment on. Mine.”

She moaned softly in her throat when he began to move. He
sealed his avowal with quick, hard strokes, showing her who was her master. The
table thudded against the door with each thrust. But he spared no thoughts for
detection, concentrated only on the end. It came with near painful intensity,
the blood pulsing in his shoulder as much as in his groin. Her answering gasps
filled him with intense satisfaction, but he allowed her only a moment to savor
the small ripples he knew still coursed her body.

“Dress and prepare yourself. When I say we must go, we must
go. There will be no time for contemplation or goodbyes.”

She smoothed her gown and slipped her feet into her tiny
slippers. “Believe me when I say I shall be waiting for your signal. I cannot
wait to bid this place adieu. What shall the signal be? Something secret? Shall
you tap your nose? Hold up a certain number of fingers?”

He drew the support for his wounded arm over his head and
settled the bright yellow cloth about his forearm. His shoulder throbbed with
every movement. “You are ridiculous, my lady. Secret hand signals will never
work. Who would think of such a thing? Nay, I shall simply say, ‘Time to go.’”

Joan stared at the boy suitor who stood with Oswald in the
shelter of the trees. “Nat’s not here?”

Oswald smiled. He touched her cheek. She jerked away. His
smile became a frown.

“See, Oswald, she’s a bitch in more ways than one. Now get her
to the lodge.”

Francis took her one arm, and Oswald the other.

“I don’t understand.”

“I told you she was stupid,” Francis said to Oswald. To Joan
he said, “One night with Oswald and you’ll have to wed him.” Francis pulled her
along, and pain radiated from his fingers up to her shoulder.

“I want her to understand,” Oswald said. His hands were more
gentle, but she could not wrest from his grasp.

“Understand what?” she said. “That you are two fiends for
hunting a woman?”

“I should have shot her through the throat to shut her up,”
Francis said. “Of course, I imagine she’d be useless then. She’d not be sucking
the marrow from anyone’s bone after that, would she?”

Oswald clucked his tongue at Francis’ crudity. “You’re
frightening her. You and I are simply going to spend the night together, my
dear. Come morning, Francis will find us and report your seduction to his
mother. She’ll go to the bishop and insist we wed. You’ll agree, of course, to
save Nat the shame. Remember last time? How he suffered when you spent the
night with Brian de Harcourt in the kennels. They still talk about it in the
alehouse.” Oswald jerked her to a halt. “I’ll be wanting exactly what you gave
de Harcourt.”

“I’ll be wanting the same, as well,” Francis said.

Joan rolled her eyes up into her head, swayed, and
collapsed.

Oswald yelped like a woman. Francis cursed and kicked her
thigh. She stifled a gasp.

“Carry her,” Francis ordered.

Joan sensed when Oswald bent over her. She opened her eyes,
poked her fingers squarely into his, and leapt up. She dashed into the trees.

* * * * *

Adam went first to Joan’s cottage. Her saddlebags lay open
on the table. One pouch held bread and cheese, the other a clean shift. He
pulled it out, held it to his face, and breathed in her scent.

He imagined her pulling this soft garment over her head and
revealing her lithe, young body for his pleasure.

And he had taken the first opportunity to crush her spirit
and question her honor. Now, she was alone in the hills, hunting a legendary
stag no one believed in.

Adam felt sure Oswald had used the legend as a ruse to lure
Joan into the hills. Joan had only her bow. She had no dogs to guard her.

“Dogs.” Adam walked quickly from the cottage, dodging a
party of jugglers who performed for any who had leisure to watch.

“Nat,” Adam called. “May I take Basil for a short hunt? I’m
craving another meat pie.”

Nat came toward him with a frown on his face. “I’d lend you
Joan as well, but she’s not to be found. It’s not like the girl to disappear
like this.”

“I’ll find her while I’m out then.”

“Take Basil, and bless you.” Nat plucked down a leash and
collar for the lymer. “I don’t like Joan out alone with all these suitors
about.”

Adam accepted Basil’s leash and headed to his tent.

“Nay, ye’re not hunting again, are ye?” Douglas protested.

“I am. Now help me.” Adam threw open his coffer. He drew out
his hauberk.

“Ye’ll no need that for hunting.”

Adam shrugged into the heavy coat of mail. “I will for what
I’m chasing.”

* * * * *

Joan rubbed her sore arm. She crouched against a tree, halfway
along the defile, in the exact place Hugh de Coleville had been shot. The
forest looked dark and sinister, though the sky overhead was blue, outlining
the tops of trees and the birds of prey who coursed the heavens.

She listened and recognized a few sounds, soft, distant
sounds.

Oswald had a dog with him now. She knew it was Oswald who
tracked her. He’d shouted and sworn at her as she’d run away. Then he and
Francis had stalked her.

Three times they’d shot arrows at her. At her back.
Dangerously close. So close, she thought, a sob in her throat, so close they
must have meant to kill.

Luckily, Francis cared nothing for the noise he made,
swearing, crashing through underbrush. She had managed to evade them, and for a
while, she thought they’d given up the hunt.

But Oswald, at least, was back. Silently, this time, save
for the telltale sounds only a hunter would recognize.

She worked her way along a barely perceptible deer path,
trying to avoid him. But one could not hide from a scenting hound.

Her leg ached from the fall. She knelt behind a deadfall and
readied her bow, but when she lifted it, the bow trembled. She stifled a cry of
pain. She must have reinjured her arm in the fall.

The dog would find her. She stared at the weapon in her hand
and knew she could not shoot a dog, even one of Oswald’s undisciplined hounds.

She examined the surrounding trees. If she climbed one, she
could avoid the attack of a dog. But she’d be ripe for picking off by Oswald.
How had he gone from wanting to wed her to wanting her dead?

Was she mistaken about the arrows? Was it Francis who shot
to kill, not Oswald? The horse had not been mortally wounded, and to do his
job, Oswald needed to be very skilled. She felt sure it was Francis with the
black heart.

And where was Nat? Was he home in the kennels?

The hound came closer, the subtle sounds he made so
familiar, she wanted to weep. Even Oswald’s horse moved slowly, cautiously.

“I’m such a fool,” she whispered. “Why don’t I just reveal
myself and be done with it?”

Another part of her revolted. She braced herself to rise. To
run though her leg throbbed.

But where could she go? Back to the castle where the bishop
and Mathilda would simply support the man’s claim on her?

To Adam? He despised her.

The thought of his anger, his hard face when he’d seen the
open package raised a turmoil of emotion within her. She could not tell where
her anger at his precipitous accusation ended and her pain at his distrust
began.

The hound was very close. And hunting silently. The horse
came on behind it.

Evasion was useless. Oswald had surely given the dog
something to scent. She hung her head and prayed Oswald did not intend to
pursue his foolish plot.

She stood up and turned to face the faint line of the deer
trail, visible to her, invisible to the casual wanderer. She set her shoulders
square and lifted the bow. Though it trembled terribly, she kept it half drawn
as an archer would in the hunt.

A dog appeared a furlong away on the trail. A huge gray
horse coalesced from the shadows behind him.

“Basil. Adam.” She lowered her bow, her knees weak.

Basil lifted his head and bayed. The horse broke into a
canter. Moments later, the lymer was in her arms, licking her face, nudging her
under her chin.

Adam sat in silence on his huge war horse, sword sheathed at
his side, a long fighting dagger in his belt. He wore no mantle, his head was
bare, his hair blown back from his brow by the wind.

Her throat went dry. No words would come. He was beautiful.
And she feared him.

“What brought you out here?” he asked.

“Oswald told me Nat was after a stag—one only found in
legends.”

“Nat’s in the kennels.”

“Thank God.” She thrust her arrow into the quiver and slung
the bow across her back. “Either Oswald or de Coucy shot my horse. And also
shot at me.”

“They must be mad.”

“I think de Coucy is simply bad. Oswald? I don’t understand
what drives him. One moment, he is courting me, one moment aiming an arrow at
my back.

“He intended to keep me at the hunting lodge all night, then
claim carnal knowledge of me in the morning. The two of them seem to think that
would force me to wed Oswald.”

Adam’s face looked carved in stone. He settled his hand on
his sword hilt. “I’m going to have to kill them both.”

She walked away, Basil at her side.

“Where are you going?” he called.

“Home.” She did not turn. “I’m perfectly safe with Basil.”

“
Jesu
. From an arrow? In the back?
Mon Dieu
.”

He swore a few other oaths, but they sounded strangely like
the Welsh tongue to her. She stumbled.
Welsh
.

“You can’t even walk straight. How will you get home? Must I
rescue you every day of the week?”

His horse drew level with her. She looked up at him. “I
believe it is I who have rescued you. Don’t you have secrets to take to
Winchester, Adrian?”

He jerked on his reins. The great warhorse stamped and blew
air down its nostrils.

She backed away. “Don’t answer that. Forget my hasty words.
Of course you have secrets if you are Adrian de Marle. And I know you cannot
trust me. I understand…I would not trust me either.” Her throat felt thick, the
forest around her grew blurry. Basil whimpered and nudged her hand with his
nose.

Adam swung his leg over the front of his saddle and
dismounted. “If you discerned my name, then you must, at least, appreciate that
everything at Ravenswood is not as it seems. My silence concerns the oath I
took and for that reason alone, I cannot answer. If I could, I would.”

“You would?”

He bent his head and kissed her. She wrapped her hand around
his nape and kissed him back. Hard. His tongue was fever hot in her mouth.

“Will I ever see you again?” she asked.

“Am I going somewhere?”

“Winchester.”

“I intended to ask your forgiveness in hopes you’d go for
me.”

She went down on one knee and hugged the lymer. “This is
about who you are, isn’t it?”

He nodded.

“One of your ancestors built Ravenswood, didn’t he?”

“Aye,” he said softly. “It is my grandfather’s sword hanging
in the hall. How did you guess?”

“Little things. Nat swore he saw Adrian de Marle, though I
thought it just another of his confusions. The Welsh curse just now. Is that
not where your father settled? And you know a secret way into the castle. You
lied about how you found it, didn’t you?”

“It happened as I said, save that I was a child at the
time.”

“I suppose I can now understood how you can separate
Ravenswood from Mathilda.”

She put out her hand. He placed his, heavy in its gauntlet,
on hers. “If you can but trust me, one more time, Adam, I will go to Winchester
for you.”

He swept her up into his embrace. He wanted to devour her,
to shed his mail that he might know the feel of her soft breasts and thighs
against his again. Her lips parted to his tongue and he savored the moaning
sounds she made.

Her body went taut in his arms. “Dogs,” she whispered,
pulling away.

Adam lifted his head. He heard the sound, the distant bay of
hunting hounds.

“Joan.” He touched her shoulder. He drew her toward the
shelter of a fallen pine, crouching low. “I believe we have become the quarry.”

Her eyes widened. For a brief moment he thought she might
object, but instead, she lowered her eyes and nodded. Her lips formed one word.

Oswald
. He must have returned with his pack.

Adam thought of the man hunting Joan. “Go back to the
castle. I’ll let him hunt me.”

She shook her head so violently, her plait whipped across
her shoulder. “You cannot run from the hounds. They’ll bring down a horse as
easily as they would a stag.”

He bent his head at the image she painted. Her hand on his
knee reminded him of how powerless she was alone. He cared for nothing save
that she remain unharmed. He placed his lips near her ear and said, “If we’re
the quarry, we must behave as such, and evade the hunter. I’m sending Sinner
back to the stables. If he returns riderless, perhaps my men will come after
me.”

“Adam, Basil cannot withstand a battle with a pack of dogs.”

“Will he follow my horse, do you think?” He rose and drew
the leash from his saddle.

“Aye, if he is leashed, he will go where the destrier goes.”

He stroked the destrier’s neck, speaking in the great
horse’s ear. He secured the leashed Basil and the reins to the saddle, then slapped
the horse’s rump. It pawed the ground, then cantered away. Basil at his heels.

When Adam turned toward the hunter, she made no demur. He
did as the stag might, doubling back on their path. If the hounds were scenting
hounds, they would have been given something of Joan’s or his to aid their
search. Adam crossed their path twice before turning and moving in the
direction they needed to take, out of the defile.

If they did not leave it, the terrain would herd them. It
would lead them to a trap as surely as if they were a simple deer.

Adam listened. Wind riffled leaves. A small animal scurried
away in the undergrowth. No hounds gave voice.

He signaled to Joan they should go left, crossing their path
again, but she shook her head.

She touched her bow she wore slung on her back and pointed,
then tapped her arm with two fingers. He realized they were within two furlongs
of the place where the archers in a hunt would be placed. This time, they would
not be facing the quarry, their backs to the trees. This time, if there were
archers, they would be concealed.

Concealment meant a narrow shooting angle. If they came at
Oswald from his right, they would further lessen his chances of hitting them.
Adam silently demonstrated to Joan that he wanted her bow. It was the same
hunting bow most archers used. It was light and flexible to allow the hunter to
stand for long periods of time waiting for the deer with the bow drawn.

Joan only had the five usual arrows a hunter carried. But
she also had a dart. It was naught but a small spear, but Adam grinned, it was
a weapon he knew well how to use.

They had his sword. He drew his dagger and pressed it into
Joan’s hand. She stared at it and shook her head, refusing to curl her fingers
about the hilt. They warred for a few precious moments pressing, the dagger
back and forth between them. In the end, Joan took the long blade in her hand.