The Last Arrow RH3 (45 page)

Sparrow? What say you both; shall we have him along?"

Brenna was too dumbfounded to say anything. Her brother had been hoping to expose the inherent sense of honor he had recognized in Griffyn Renaud and, instead, had shocked them all by uncovering genuine blooded nobility.

Griffyn had obviously arrived at the same conclusion, and his own smile was tempered with a frown. "I have not yet agreed to come along."

"You will," Robin said jovially, "when you realize your only other choice is to go under the leaves with the rest of the corpses and wait for the carrion to sniff you out in the morning."

Griffyn's brow arched again and he gave Sparrow's arblaster—and the itchy fingers that longed to tickle it—a measured look. "Put that way ... I suppose it would be churlish to refuse your invitation."

Robin nodded. "I was hoping you would think so."

Sparrow shook his head and groaned. "Madness. It runs rampant in this family. I knew it the first time I took up company with your father, and there has been no relief of it since."

Robin clapped him on the shoulder. "Yes, but are your ballocks still itching?"

The little man cast a frown in the direction of his crotch. "No," he said, somewhat reluctantly. "In truth, they are not."

"Then away, Puck, and bring up the horses; we have wasted enough time already. Brenna?"

She looked up and held her breath, for she was half convinced he would have changed his mind by now about taking her along.

"Be sure to retrieve all of your arrows; we may have difficulty replacing them once we cross the Channel."

She nodded and darted off to comply, and was not quite out of earshot when she heard Griffyn's startled query.

"She is going to England with you?"

"The island is nine-tenths forest. And in the forest, with or without a bow in her hand, Brenna has few equals. If that is a problem for you ...?"

"The problem," Griffyn said evenly, "is that the forests of England are like no other forest in the world."

"Do you speak from experience ... or fear?"

"An honest measure of both. Ghostly armies aside, you could hide an entire kingdom inside the greenwood between Lincoln and Nottingham and never know it was there."

"With God's help, we will not need to keep a kingdom hidden, only a king."

Half a mile away, camouflaged by trees and dense bramble, Solange de Sancerre gripped Malagane's arm tightly as she counted the number of horses and riders that were leaving c gully below. Six of the knights turned back and retraced their route to join up with the entourage returning to Amboise. Nine continued west, on the road to Rouen, deluding the girl, two squires, and Griffyn Renaud. They had enjoyed the perfect view. From their vantage they had been able to watch Wardieu's men approach from the east while two of their number—Solange thought she saw the flash of a long golden braid on one of them— scouted the woods ahead and targeted Gerome's men. The resultant skirmish had them on their toes some of the time, trying to observe it all. Malagane had cursed almost continually to see how easily the ambush had been foiled, but after all, they were Gerome's men. Hired thugs, for the most part, and crossbowmen who were always considered expendable.

"Do you think it worked, my darling?" Solange asked in a breathless whisper. "Do you think the ploy was convincing?"

"I lost count of the bodies, but I expect there was enough carnage to persuade Wardieu the ambush was real." "A pity about Gerome."

"Blundering oaf; he as good as killed himself. Could you not have controlled him any better? All of this would have been for naught if he had killed the Burgundian—or worse, damaged him too much to make the journey."

Solange dismissed his concerns with a shrug. "Renaud is a strong beast, he will recover. And I doubt it would have locked quite so believable had he merely suffered a slap on he cheek. Besides which, he has his loving little bitch now to tend his wounds. She will nurse him back to health if only to show her appreciation for the noble sacrifices he made today."

"Indeed, I want him back in perfect health," said a low, ominous voice behind them. "I want him healthy so that when I tear his heart from his chest and stuff it down his throat, he will appreciate the true taste of revenge."

Both Solange and Malagane turned to admire the fury

blazing in Andrew de Chanceas's soulless eyes. His tunic was lavishly stained with the blood of Engelard Cigogni, who had died in his arms not ten minutes after leaving the gully.

"You will have your chance at him," Malagane promised. "After he has outlived his usefulness. For now, we have arrangements to make."

"What arrangements?" Solange asked. "The men are ready to leave at a moment's notice. The ship is waiting in Rouen. And we were told there was no need to risk venturing too close." The green eyes sought the distant crust of trees again. "He has assured us he will leave signs telling us where they have been and where they are going. All we have to do is follow our happy company of heroes at a discreet distance."

"Even so, I would have been happier if Wardieu's interference had been eliminated on the jousting field today."

"I suspected your anger at our Dark Prince was not entirely feigned. To be sure, poor Gerome was induced to believe he was bait and nothing more. And think how much happier you will be when you are able to tell Prince Louis you not only witnessed the demise of Eleanor of Brittany personally but that you have brought him proof the Black Wolf is a traitor and has been plotting all along with his sons and his English allies to overthrow the French king. Who knows?" She tipped her head up and offered the luscious pout of her mouth for his consideration.

"Perhaps he will reward you with Amboise."

"Perhaps he will," Malagane agreed in a murmur, his eyes gleaming with avarice. "In which case, we must take steps to insure there are no troublesome witnesses left behind. And if the shire of Nottingham is indeed our final destination, I know just the man who would raze the forests to the ground if he thought Robert Wardieu d'Amboise was within his grasp."

Robin's tiny band passed through the city of Rouen without further incident and, riding hard, reached the port town of Fecamp in time to admire the sunset the following night. Jean de Brevant, who had gone on ahead to arrange their passage, was not overly pleased to hear of their troubles at Gaillard. He was even less humored to see Griffyn Renaud and Fulgrin in their midst. The former had bruised splendidly throughout the night and day. One of his eyes was blue and swollen completely shut. His jaw was cut, his lips puffed out of any recognizable shape. But he had kept pace with the others, remaining in his saddle through sheer strength of will.

Brenna's heart had been in her throat each time they halted. She was afraid to go to him, afraid of what she might give away if she touched him or offered to tend his wounds. It was bad enough sensing Robin's displeasure each time he caught her looking in Griffyn's direction; bad enough to know he was aware of what she had given away already.

The ship Littlejohn had found was barely big enough to house the horses belowdecks and the men above. It was a ingle-masted cog, old enough, leaky enough, it had probably been used in its prime to carry Crusaders to the Holy Land.

Richard, Dag, and Geoffrey, after the first flush of bravado wore off, spent much of the time at the rails, their faces as green as the sea. Sparrow convinced himself the masts were trees and made a perch for himself in one, while Robin and Littlejohn preferred to huddle miserably against

a bulkhead. Griffyn kept to himself, although he was never left entirely alone. Will FitzAthelstan was never very far from the dark knight's side, and if Griffyn suspected he was being closely watched, he gave no outward sign of taking offense. He brooded more over the necessity of leaving Centurion behind than the circumstances aboard ship.

The stallion had come up lame on the last few miles of their approach to Fecamp, and it had been considered wise not to risk further injury in the cramped hold of the carrack.

Fulgrin had generously offered to remain behind to care for the destrier, but since there was only Timkin to handle the rouncies and supplies (and because he knew as much about where they were going and what they were setting forth to do), his submission was refused. He made no attempt to conceal his indignation and stated bluntly that he preferred the company of the horses. He stayed below-deck for most of the crossing, only surfacing when the stench of offal and wet hay became more overpowering than the sight of the horizon lurching up and down.

Brenna, who had never been at sea before, watched the men falling like nine-pins struck with a guilles stick and waited for her own stomach to protest the chilly, wind-driven passage. Three full days she waited, feeling nothing more than a faint queasiness, and was congratulating herself on possessing an iron gullet when the ship encountered a storm just off the hip of Yarmouth. The wind that had been pushing them along at a brisk pace suddenly blew in from all sides and roared with an unrelenting fury. Waves broke over the deck in solid gray sheets and threatened to sweep away anything not securely lashed to a mast or bulkhead.

In this new shifting, slipping, sliding, careening world, the seas had completely erased any point of reference on the horizon or, indeed, on board the ship, and Brenna quickly changed her opinions of sea travel. Her stomach more than made up for its reticence, and at end of twelve hours of constant battering by salt water and stinging rain, having been one of those objects securely lashed to a cap-si an, she was never so happy to see land, regardless who ruled or how bitter the ale.

Damaged, the cog had to put in at Lowestoft. Robin had been hoping to sail as far north as the Wash before landing, and he estimated this would add as much as three days to their journey. The men seemed to recover their spirits as soon as they set foot on solid land, proving to be ravenously hungry and insatiably thirsty, eager to be on their way.

The horses were not so quick to adapt, however, and one of the rouncies had to be left behind.

The sky did not lose its gray, sullen appearance, not even after the storm had blown itself far out to sea. It remained a dull pewter color, heavy with slow-moving clouds that drizzled a constant, fine mist over the land day and night.

Clothing that had become soaked on board ship had no opportunity to dry properly, and Sparrow, whose mission in life, as always, was to remind people of how truly wretched they could be, carped continually about the frozen state of his nose and toes, and about the sanity of any king who would not only choose to conquer such a godforsaken place but actually fight to keep it.

"Give it away to the first passing trull, I would," he muttered for the umpteenth time. "The land is too sour to grow anything but cabbages. The wine is like vinegar"—here he burped to prove he had given it a fair test—"and the meat so foul, a man must needs check his breeks each time he passes wind to insure there are no unwelcome surprises. In truth, I had forgotten how dreary and woebegotten a place is this England."

His opinions included the people as well. They were a forlorn, frightened lot, most of them cowering before the sight of the armored knights like dogs who expected to be beaten. At the odd village they were greeted with the respect due their rank, but these were few and the number of amiable people fewer still, with none inclined to extend more than the barest courtesies to passing strangers.

It was here, in the small vills and hamlets, where Griffyn Renaud proved his worth again. His French, perfect on the Continent and seeming to be tainted with only a hint of the coarser dialects of Burgundy, lapsed easily and fluidly into plain Saxon English when the need was required, startling his companions as well as the peasants he addressed.

Robin and the others knew enough of the heathen tongue to get by begging a cup of water or lodgings for the night.

But Griffyn could talk like one of them—something even Littlejohn found he had difficulty doing, not having spoken the language in over a decade.

Renaud's fluency saved them on more than one occasion when surly peasants deliberately sought to give them wrong directions as they worked their way inland toward the Great North Road—the main artery from London that passed through Nottingham, Lincoln, and York. It saved them on another occasion, when they were passing through a densely wooded forest and came upon an old man skinning a young, fat doe.

He must not have heard them approaching, for his left ear was missing and the right needed to be tilted toward the speaker's mouth to catch every other word. When he did eventually see the riders coming through the woods, he dropped the bloody knife and threw himself down on his knees, his head bowed, his hands clasped through a fervent prayer that lasted until Robin and Littlejohn dismounted. By then his face, hardly more than wrinkles layered upon wrinkles, had drained to pasty yellow-white and his eyes refused to lift above the level of the swords the two knights wore belted at their waists.

"Good fellow, rise," Robin ordered genially.