Suzanne Robinson (39 page)

“Me back. Me back’s near broke with riding this bony nag. Ah-ah-ah-ahchoooooooo!”

Juliana glanced back to see Alice’s hands fly up to her face. The end of a rein flicked her horse’s ear. The animal screamed and bolted. Jumping the stream, it careened into the forest along a muddy track that pierced deep into the North Wood. Alice shrieked and bounced in the saddle.

“Watch your seat,” Juliana shouted as she kicked her horse and rode after her maid.

Barnaby came after her, but he was old and rode much slower. Juliana plunged down the narrow track dodging branches wet from a night’s heavy rain. Alice vanished around a twisting curve in the track. Soon all Juliana could do was follow the sound of her wails. She swerved along the jagged path. Mud flew in her face as her mare cantered, but she urged the horse on, fearful that Alice would lose her balance and fall or be dragged.

She heard another scream, and then nothing. Rounding
another sharp bend, she slowed and came to a halt. Alice sat in the middle of the path. While Juliana dismounted, the maid got on all fours, put her hand on her back and moaned.

“Me back, me poor back. It’s broken, it is.”

Barnaby joined them and sat on his horse gawking at the muddy and moaning figure of the maid. Juliana stalked over to her.

“Hush. Have you no pluck at all, woman? Here, take my hand.” Juliana pulled the maid to her feet and began poking and prodding her to the accompaniment of Alice’s groans. “Just as I thought. Nothing broken.” She looked around and spotted a spray of ceramic shards. “Nothing except my herb jars, by God’s grace. Thunder of heaven! If you’ve broken all my pots, I’ll skin you, I will.”

“I couldn’t help it,” Alice wailed.

Juliana winced at the sound, then sighed. “I know, Alice. Pay me no heed. This tournament has me right evilly disposed. You rest here. Barnaby, you find her horse, and I’ll go back for the basket. I’ve no doubt she dropped it back there somewhere.”

She walked her horse slowly back down the track. To the side, beneath a dead shrub she spotted a squat blue jar. Dismounting, she hiked up her skirt and picked her way toward it through dead leaves and mud. She’d been wise to wear an old gown of coarse wool and one of her mother’s oldest cast-off cloaks. The end of the garment trailed in the mud. Juliana stopped to pick it up and sling it over her arm. Then she began to pick up herb jars.

She worked her way down the path, leaving it occasionally to retrieve a pot. Her boots soon wore thick coats of mud. It was growing harder and harder to walk
in them. She’d made a sack of the end of her cloak, and it was filled with small stoppered pots, each carefully labeled.

Juliana stopped for a moment beside a water-filled hole in the middle of the track. It was as long as a small cart. She remembered splashing through it when she chased after Alice. A little way off she could hear the stream churning on its way to join the Clare. She would have to turn back soon, but she was reluctant. She still hadn’t found the jar containing leaves of agrimony, a plant with spiky yellow flowers. She needed the agrimony, for one of the daughters of a villein at Vyne Hill had a persistent cough.

The child, Jacoba, needed to drink a decoction of the herb flavored with honey. Juliana didn’t want to admit that much of her ill humor arose from her desire to get to Vyne Hill as soon as possible and dose the little girl. Yesterday Jacoba had been worn out from the violent spasms. If she lost more strength, she could be in danger.

Clutching her cloakful of pots, Juliana searched the woods to either side of the track for the small white jar. All at once she saw it lying on the opposite side of the path at the base of a stone the size of an anvil. So great was her relief that she lunged across the track. She sailed over the puddle of water, but landed in mud. Her boots sank to her ankles.

“Damnation.”

Stepping out of the ooze, she picked up the jar, balanced on the edge of the mud and bent her knees in preparation for a jump. At the last moment she heard what she would have noticed had she been less intent on her herb jar. Hoofbeats thundered toward her. Teetering on the edge of the mud, she glanced in the direction of the stream.

Around a bend in the track hurtled a monstrous giant destrier, pure black and snorting, with a man astride it so tall that he nearly matched the size of his mount. Juliana stumbled back. She glimpsed shining chain mail, emerald silk and a curtain of silver hair before a wall of black horseflesh barrelled past her. An armored leg caught her shoulder. She spun around, thrown off balance by the force of the horse’s motion. Her arms flew out. Pots sailed in all directions. Legs working, she stumbled into mud and fell backward into the puddle. As she landed she could hear a lurid curse.

She gasped as she hit the cold water. Her hands hit the ground and sent a shower of mud onto her head and shoulders. Juliana sputtered and wheezed, then blinked her muddy lashes as she beheld the strange knight. He had pulled up his destrier, and the beast had objected. The stallion rose on his hind legs and clawed the air, snorting and jerking at the bridle. Those great front hooves came down and landed not five paces from Juliana. More mud and dirty water spewed from beneath them and into her face.

This time she didn’t just gasp; she screamed with fury. To her mortification, she heard a low, rough laugh. She had closed her eyes, but now she opened them and beheld her tormentor. The knight sat astride his furious war horse as easily as if it were a palfrey. He tossed back long locks the color of silver and pearls as he smiled down at her, and Juliana felt as if she wanted to spit and arch her back.

Juliana scowled into a gaze of green that rivaled the emerald of the length of samite that draped across his shoulders and disappeared into the folds of his black cloak. It was a gaze that exuded an elemental message of sensuality and explicit knowledge. And even through
her anger she was startled at the face. It was the face of the legendary Arthur, or some young Viking warrior brought back to life—wide at the jawline, hollow cheeks and a bold, straight nose. The face of a barbarian warrior king, and it was laughing at her.

“By my soul,” he said in a voice that was half seductive growl, half chuckle. “Why didn’t you stand aside? Have you no sense? No, I suppose not, or you wouldn’t be sitting in a mud puddle like a little black duck.”

Shivering with humiliation as well as the cold, Juliana felt herself burst with rage. The knave was laughing again! Her hands curled into fists, and she felt them squeeze mud. Her eyes narrowed as she beheld the epitome of armored male insolence. Suddenly she lunged to her feet, brought her hands together, gathering the mud, and hurled it at that pretty, smirking face. The gob of mud hit him in the chest and splattered over his face and hair. It was his turn to gasp and grimace. Teeth chattering, Juliana gave him a sylph’s smile.

“And so should all ungentle knights be served, Sir Mud Face.”

She laughed, but her merriment vanished when she saw the change in him. He didn’t swear or fume or rant in impotence like her father. His smile of sensual corruption vanished, and his features chilled with the ice of ruthlessness and an utter lack of mercy. In silence he swung down off his horse and stalked toward her. Juliana gaped at him for a moment, then grabbed her skirts—and ran.