The Warrior's Game (16 page)

What was wrong with that woman? Even chickens had better sense than to stay out of doors for any length of time on a day such as this one. Another blast of frigid air buffeted Michel as if it were trying to drive him and Roger’s horse off the road. He drew deeper into his fur-lined cloak. Sleet stung his face where his scarf didn’t cover it. The air had grown colder since the advent of afternoon.

Beside him, John’s tracker also bent to escape God’s breath, drawing so far into his body that for a moment he seemed headless. As strange as this Ott was, the impression didn’t improve much as he straightened. With his shoulders hunched, his cloak hood pulled low over his brow and a scarf wrapped around his lower face, his eyes were the only thing visible. Ott’s gaze met Michel’s, then slipped to the side, not with the disdain of Michel’s betters but as if the man were uncomfortable with other humans.

Ott hadn’t uttered more than three words since they left Winchester. Nor was he speedy at his task, moving no faster than a trot between marks. Michel hadn’t minded the man’s deliberate pace at first, not when backtracking might cost time he couldn’t afford to spend. Moreover, until this past hour and the last two marks, they’d kept to almost the same route Michel had used to reach the de la Beres manor only three days ago.

They no longer did. Although they still moved in the general direction of Amicia’s nearest property, this change worried Michel. John’s vow or not, he couldn’t resist the thought he was again being cheated. At the last mark he’d told himself he’d continue on in this direction for another hour, but if they found nothing or turned too far from where that manor house was, he’d bid Ott farewell and ride for Thame, hoping Sir Enguerran would find his bride for him.

When the wind howled past Michel this time, the scent of woodsmoke and penned livestock filled its depths--the promise of civilization ahead on this track. A little farther on, grassy pastureland gave way to cultivated fields. The scars plows left upon the earth ran at odd angles, plot by plot, as each family strove to take the best advantage of drainage and the sun. As he rode past, the reek told Michel which of these fields would rest beneath a layer of manure for the next season and which would soon put forth a crop of winter wheat.

The village that owned the plots was of good size, several hundred dwellings. Framed against the dark and raging sky, whitewashed cottage walls gleamed beneath thatched caps the color of tarnished gold. Rising from their midst, a holy island in a sea of the mundane, was the stone tower of their church, the village’s heart and refuge in times of trouble.

A single rider came toward them. Beside Michel, Ott straightened in his saddle and gave a forward jerk of his chin as he recognized the traveler. Michel’s concern fell away in a wave of relief. Urging his horse into a canter, he rode forward to meet the man.

“I am Sir Michel de Martigny,” he called out over the whine of the wind. In case the soldier needed proof, Michel pulled his scarf down beneath his chin to reveal his face.

“Then you are the man I seek,” the king’s soldier replied. With his dark cloak hood drawn down over his brow and his receding chin covered by a sparse black beard, the man’s great nose became a crow’s beak. Just as Michel wore Roger's leather hauberk, thick woolen tunic, heavy cloak and braies, this man was also dressed for the cold save that rather than braies he'd had cross-gartered a second layer of fabric over his legs for warmth’s sake.

“Where is Lady de la Beres?” Michel demanded.

“She still moves along the track, having exited the village a quarter hour or so ago,” the soldier replied, giving a jerk of his thumb to indicate the cottages behind him. “The mare she rides has finally given out and refuses to carry her any longer.”

“She’s afoot?” Michel snapped in unwelcome surprise. If her horse was done in they wouldn’t be reaching Thame tonight.

“Aye, and Pip and I, we’re none too happy about letting her go on this way, not with no mount to carry her away from danger should something happen. His majesty commanded she not see us as we followed. Now that her pace has slowed, we’ve had to drop even farther behind her. We wouldn’t know until it was too late if she were attacked. Thus, did we decide it was time to see if you came after us as our king said you would, sir. As slow as we’ve moved, we calculated that Ott, there”--he raised a hand to the tracker who was yet plodding their way--“should have found us about now.”

John’s soldiers had more heart than their royal master. “Which way takes me to her?”

The soldier shifted in his saddle to indicate the village behind him. “You ride straight on through, sir, bearing on the leftward path as it rounds the green, then on past the church. When you’re out the other side, stay leftward. You’ll find Pip at the village’s edge or thereabouts.”

“My thanks,” Michel replied. “Now, if you’re so inclined you can earn yourself a few coins by bearing a message for me.”

The soldier grinned at that. “There was no one who said Pip and I needed to hurry back to Winchester, sir. Where does this message go?”

“To Reading.” Before leaving Winchester, Michel had laid out his intended path to Thame with Roger. “At the priory there you’ll find my man, Alan of Exeter. Tell him that I have the lady, but that she and I have only one good horse between us and won’t make Thame this night.”

Michel exhaled in frustration, his breath clouding before him. If Roger arrived at the abbey, riding his master's horse, wearing his master's mail and bearing Maud in his arm, but there was no wedding to end the chase, Sir Enguerran would realize he’d been hoodwinked. The knight and his men would scour the countryside seeking the missing bride. And that would leave Michel no choice but to ride hell-bent for Thame on the morrow with Amicia at his side and no protection to offer her.

“Tell him that Roger must leave Thame under cover of darkness to confound those who follow, and ride for Reading. If I’m not already at the priory to meet them when they arrive upon the morrow, then they should assume I’m working my way toward the city, moving from village to village as I come. If they do the same, we should meet each other at some point. If for some reason we miss each other, the lady and I will continue on to Thame, doing the same all the way.” The only reason Michel wouldn’t reach either Reading or Thame was that Sir Enguerran had killed him to claim the free bride John had promised him.

“Aye, sir,” the soldier said, then hesitated. “Pardon, but is there great haste with this message? None of us believed the lady would dare leave our custody this morn, even though our king warned us she would. Nor did we think we’d be out for more than an hour or two before you caught us. Pip and I have nothing to eat, unless we dine on our horses’ oatcakes. There’s an alewife in the village whose stew promises to be more appetizing,” he said as Ott drew his mount alongside them.

It was a fitting end to a sour tale. John had sent Amicia from Winchester with a troop of unprovisioned men. If the soldiers hadn’t eaten, neither had she. He’d have to feed her if he wanted to travel many more miles before they rested.

“Eat then, but don’t linger overly long at it,” Michel told the soldier, stripping off his gloves to dig out the promised payment. “Show me this alewife’s shop. Perhaps she has something more portable than stew.”

“That I’ll do, sir,” the soldier said smiling, “if you’ll kindly send Pip back to join me when you find him.”

In this village the alewife not only supplied the town’s drink, but had turned her home into a decent cookshop as well. She provided Michel with sausages, a loaf of bread and a wedge of cheese, then filled his spare flask with freshly brewed ale. Stashing their dinner in his saddle pack, Michel rode on to the village’s edge only to find Pip no longer there. It was another quarter mile on the track and around a copse before Michel discovered the man.

Pip looked to be more fresh-faced lad than soldier, and a study in browns, from his drab bundling and pale mustache to his horse’s dull coat. The local who stood alongside his horse was the opposite, a bright spot in a winter-faded world. The old man’s tunic was a bright red, his capuchin a vibrant green. His curly beard and his hair were the same color as the creamy fleece draped over his shoulders. Instead of boots, he wore that same wooly covering on his legs. Between that and the shepherd’s crook upon which he leaned, there was little doubting the man’s profession.

The shepherd ranted at Pip in the English tongue, shaking a finger as if to chide. Already weathered by time into its own sort of leather, the old man’s skin creased all the more in his irritation. As Michel drew his horse to a halt next to Pip’s, the soldier said something. The shepherd fell into an immediate silence, then shot a narrow-eyed look at Michel.

Pip smiled. “You’ve come just in time for her sake, sir. She’s afoot now that her horse has given out. But, where is your troop?” He peered back toward the village behind Michel as if expecting more men to appear.

“I’m alone for the now,” Michel replied. The old man watched him, his brows drawn down over dark eyes as if he were trying to puzzle out what was being said.

“Ah,” Pip said, then glanced at the sword belted to Michel’s side. “I suppose that’s no hardship for you, sir. You can protect her better than any other man.”

“I suppose I can,” Michel replied. Aye, he could protect Amicia as long as he didn’t face Sir Enguerran and twenty men all by himself. “Now that I’ve found the lady, you can take yourself back to the village to meet your fellow at the alewife’s shop. You and he will do an errand for me before returning to your royal master.”

As he spoke, Michel began to turn Roger's horse to follow Amicia. To his surprise, the shepherd reached up to catch the steed by the bridle. The old man said something in his guttural tongue. It had the sound of a question to it.

Pip frowned at the shepherd and snapped a command. The old man’s face tightened in refusal, his retort given in a rude tone. Pip shrugged, then looked at the knight.

“Sir, I told him to release your horse, but he insists on knowing if you’re responsible for the lady. He passed her on the track and wasn’t too happy about meeting her. What shall I say to him?”

“There is no harm in telling him that she is mine,” Michel replied.

A wave of satisfaction washed over him as he spoke the words. Aye, Amicia was his. She’d given her body to him, choosing him above all other men. If that’s all the acceptance he ever got from her, it would be enough.

His answer sent the old man into another tirade, this time shaking his finger at Michel.

“He’s upset about her traveling alone, sir,” Pip said, translating as the man continued his rant. “That, and he’s complaining about her rude reply after he told her this track was too dangerous a place for a gentlewoman traveling without an escort.”

Laughter caught Michel by surprise, escaping from him as a harsh bark. “Tell him that the gentlewoman speaks rudely to all the commoners she meets, myself included. As for an escort, assure him that she shall have me at her side sooner than she wants and much to her displeasure.”

Smiling, Pip translated. The old man’s brows rose, then something akin to a strangled chortle left him. His grin revealed that he’d given up two of his lower foreteeth to time’s passage.

In that instant wind again blasted past them, tearing at Michel’s clothing as it stirred the fleece on the shepherd’s back. It was colder now than it had been half an hour ago. The clouds had lowered, borne down by the weight of the storm, until they seemed to drag across the land in the promise of more frigid moisture. Michel’s hope of reaching Reading before nightfall disintegrated.

He glanced at the shepherd, then back to Pip. “Given the weather and the lady’s mount, she and I may need a refuge for the night before we complete our journey. This man knows the area. Tell him that it’s toward the northwest and Reading that I intend to head. Ask him if he knows any place suitable for us to stop as we make our way in that direction.”

Pip decoded the old man’s answer. “Sir, he says that if you stay on this track it will turn eastward, taking you to the de la Beres manor about seven leagues on. However, there is a path about two leagues from here that breaks from it, heading northward once it enters the earl’s properties. He warns that it has the look of an animal walk, but you’ll know you’ve turned rightly for you’ll cross a stream before the fork, then once on the track the water will cut back and forth before you. However, from that fork there’s not much in the way of civilization. The earl’s chase stands between you and your route to Reading, and in that wild place no man may linger overly long.”

Michel grimaced at the thought of sleeping out-of-doors on this night. The old man eyed him in consideration, tugging at his fleecy beard. He spoke to Pip, his tone earnest.

“Sir, he says just after the fork there’s his summer hut,” Pip translated. “He says it’s not much, but it’s snug enough to keep out the wind and rain. He’s just returned from closing it up for the winter, so it’s clean enough for the likes of you and the lady. There’s straw in the lean-to, if you’d like to put it between you and the ground for a bed, and your horse can graze his fill in the area. He says that after you’ve gone a mile or so beyond the fork, you’ll see the pens from the track.”