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  Rot or no, Tabor would have welcomed any of it. His stomach, empty since his last meal of dried meat yester eve, cramped from hunger. But he carried no silver and would find no meal here. He still reeked from the chamber pail and yearned for a bath and the comfortable weave of his own clothes instead of the raw tunic that scratched his chest.

  The church bell rang a short, flat tone, ten times. He would arrive at the rendezvous point, the Druid stones, by dinnertime. He would meet John, enjoy a quick meal, bathe in the river, and change into his own clothes. At Coin Forest, Father Bernard would finish copying the history of his armorial bearings so he could present it at court. After that he would shove it down Hungerford’s sneering mouth.

  He had faced humiliation today, but he’d also emerged with a prize. He would have his voice in the king’s court and end this long-standing ordeal.

  He passed the town walls and entered the countryside, following a footpath that led past a group of trees. Nearing the thick grove, he noticed a slight movement of one of the lower branches and tensed. Hungry and weakened by the beatings, he also lacked even a dagger for defense. He wished Sir John would appear, leading Tabor’s horse. He cursed the impulsiveness that had caused all this.

  A movement to the right caught his eye. He turned.

  The prostitute from the tavern. She glanced down the road he’d just traveled, then met his eyes. Her grey gown was even more soiled, her red, braided hair had been pulled loose, her face covered in bruises. “I know who you are, Lord Tabor. Please come here so we may talk.”

  Tabor had no interest in entering a stand of trees unarmed. “I can hear you fine. What say you?”

  She inched out from the tree, her closely set eyes stealing glances behind him. “His guards nigh caught me this morn.”

  “Who?”

  “Rauf. He will kill me.”

  “I believe that. I’m sorry about your brother. What is your name?”

  “Maud.”

  “I am sorry for you, Maud, but it is not safe to be out here, alone. Get you back to the village.”

  “No,” she sobbed. “Rauf will find me. He will cut out my tongue.”

  “Why?” Not that Rauf would need a reason.

  “Because during the fight in the alehouse I warned your friend, the greasy-haired one, and he dodged the guard’s sword and ran free.” She tipped her head toward the road Tabor traveled. “You’re leaving Hungerford. Please take me with you.”

  Maud had saved John’s neck by helping him escape, but what if she lied now, to save her own? He studied her face. Her eyes were wet with tears, swollen, and her hands trembled.

  He looked to the sky and sighed. At least she was big and strong and might not slow him down too much. But she should know the risks of coming with him. “Rauf may want your tongue, but he wants my head. And I have no weapon, not even a dagger.”

  She smiled through her bruises and tears and lifted her skirt, revealing a stout leg laced with a leather strap that held a butcher knife, a short whip, and several daggers.

  * * * * *

  Tabor chose to travel on the open road.

  “My lord?”

  “Yes, Maud?”

  She glanced nervously at a cluster of thick, unruly bushes. “’Tis not mine to question you, but why are we traveling openly, when Rauf is about?”

  “We can make better time.” He felt at least temporarily protected by Gloucester’s presence. “If Rauf plans an ambush, he won’t do it on his own land. He’ll wait until we’re some distance from Hungerford so he’ll look innocent. Once we gain distance, we’ll seek cover.”

  * * * * *

  They reached the Druid stones before dinnertime. Tabor walked to the center of the stones. “Where are they?”

  Maud caught up with him. “Who?”

  “Sir John, and my men from Fritham. They were to meet me here with my horse.” He tried not to smell his disgusting tunic. “And my clothes.”

  He paced the circle of Druid stones, half again taller than he. Frustration gnawed at him, along with the pangs of hunger. “By the saints, can it get any worse?” He pounded a stone with his fist. “Where are they?”

  “Lord Tabor.” A slight young man, barely more than a boy, emerged from behind a tree.

  Adney. Tabor recognized him as a squire from Fritham.

  “Godspeed, my lord.” He pulled a set of reins and Bolt appeared, snorting imperiously.

  Relieved to see his horse, Tabor breathed more easily. “’Tis good to see you, Adney. Good, indeed.”

  Adney limped toward them. An inferior hackney followed behind Tabor’s horse, presumably Adney’s horse.

  Tabor waited for others to emerge from the woods, but no one did.

  “Where’s Sir John?”

  “In Fritham, my lord. Hungerford men were approaching, so Sir John took the knights there to defend it. He bade me inform you that he’ll remain there to await your order. He left me with your horse and a pigeon.”

  “A Fritham pigeon?”

  “Aye.”

  “But I need Sir John here. And bloody pox, I need a change of clothes.” He eyed Adney’s slight shoulders and short height.

  Adney followed his gaze, glanced at his clothes, then at Tabor. “Sorry, my lord, but you’re twice my size.”

  “Aye.” He noticed the young boy stood on just one leg. “What happened to you?”

  Adney looked down at his left foot. “Clumsy, my lord. I was mounting my horse and it startled. Wrenched my ankle in the stirrup.”

  “I need to get to Coin Forest, posthaste.”

  Adney glanced at Tabor, then Maud, and offered the hackney’s reigns. “Worry not, my lord. I can walk.”

  Tabor paced the tall grass. God’s bones. He couldn’t leave Adney to walk, injured and alone, twenty miles to Fritham, and he had to get home.

  And Maud. She could go to Fritham, but she was too heavy to ride the hackney, and Rauf was looking for her and he was near Fritham. “Bloody pox. My thanks for your generosity, Adney, but get you gone to Fritham and tend to that leg.” He pulled a small paper, pen and ink vial from his travel bag. Using one of the short Druid stones as a table, he scribed a note to Sir John.

  Stay in Fritham. Will send word from CF.

  Sending Adney home, midday Thursday.

  He remembered Will.

  Ask Fr. Charles to free the scribe, Will, if innocent.

  He opened the pigeon cage, secured the note to the pigeon’s leg, and released it to fly to Fritham.

  Hefting the boy up on his hackney, Tabor sent him east. He settled into the saddle and helped Maud behind him. Her skirt reeked of sour ale, and she smelled gamey, as well. He pulled away from her as far as possible, breathing shallow bits of air, and urged Bolt north. “We must needs find a stream,” he choked. “Soon.”

  * * * * *

  “Sharai. Sharai.” Tabor’s hand glided over the cream-like smoothness of her skin.

  She arched her body to him.

  Her eagerness spurred fresh heat in his veins. He cupped her left breast, feeling the nipple harden in his hand. He noticed a coin between her breasts, where it had fallen when he tossed it down her neckline on stage. He lifted it, and stroked where it had lain on her skin.

  He kissed her again and she responded. He twisted her long curls in his fingers, then, unable to resist the ebony tresses any longer, he buried his face in her hair.

  “Sharai.”

  She pulled away, wrenching her hair from him so swiftly that it stung his face.

  “Just do it if you please, but quit chewing my skirt.”

  A woman’s voice, but not Sharai’s. Tabor opened his eyes to an inky darkness. “What?”

  “You said earlier you wouldn’t be needing any, but that be fine if you do. Here.” A big, firm bottom pressed against his groin.

  He jerked upright. He no longer smelled the clean scent of Sharai’s hair. Instead, the odor of spoiled ale and chamber slop met his nostrils, the stench that laundering in the stream hour
s ago had not removed. In the distance, a steady dripping broke the silence. A cave. He and Maud had taken shelter from the rainy night in a narrow cave. His small fire had dwindled to a single weak ember. By the saints, I’ve been fondling Maud’s skirt. “Forgive me, Maud, ’twas just a dream.”

  “You keep asking me, ‘Shall I? Shall I?’ Well, ’tis spittin’ clear you can, if you wish, Lord Tabor.” She caressed his thigh, moving higher. “I’d be mortal proud to please you.”

  He pushed her hand away. “Nay, Maud. Forgive me for waking you. ’Twas just a dream.”

  She patted his arm. “If you go off dreamin’ again and change your mind, I be right here, and I can make your horn honk like a goose, I can.” She poked him in the rib with her elbow. “And I’ll wager ’tis not a wee horn, either, from what I heard.” She laughed, a bawdy alehouse guffaw meant to entertain not one, but ten men.

  Tabor gave a polite laugh and slid to the edge of the cave. He would forget the damp earth sapping the warmth from his bones, and he would rest. They would resume travel early the next morning, and come the morrow’s eve he would sleep in his own bed at Coin Forest.

  * * * * *

  Tabor stopped his horse at the rise, which afforded a fine view of Coin Forest. The setting sun cast a glow on the rolling meadows. Ripe with corn and healthy beans, the fields spread around the castle like a golden skirt of abundance. Harvest this year would be worthy of thanks and celebration. Provided they secured hands to harvest it, he reminded himself, making a note to meet with Edwin, his steward, to recrew and hire workers. “There it is, Maud. My home.”

  She said nothing.

  Still distant, the castle stood in quiet splendor. Pride warmed him. This was his stake in the exclusive circle of nobility in which his father and brother had so gracefully moved. He would confirm his nobility in the king’s court, and prove himself worthy of this inheritance. He would secure a future place in that circle for himself and his heirs.

  As they passed, a peasant rose from among the cornrows. He noted Tabor’s clothes, and Maud, and his eyes widened in surprised recognition. “My lord. Good day.”

  Tabor touched the tunic he had come to loathe. It still reeked and, as if the timeworn, crude linen were not enough, the berries they had collected earlier for lunch had stained the sleeves purple. Tabor straightened, summoning a modicum of presence. “And to you.”

  Maud still had not spoken. “Maud?” He stopped his horse and put his hand on her shoulder. Her muscles were tense.

  “What is it?”

  She turned to face him, her cheeks wet with tears. “My thanks to you for bringing me here, Lord Tabor. I care not what others may say about you. You are a good man, and I am in your debt.”

  He patted her awkwardly, remembering her crippled brother. “You are a good woman, too, Maud. You’re loyal. You did what you could for your brother, and you helped Sir John.”

  She dabbed her eyes and smiled. “I’ll be good use to you. I can scrub a floor to shine, and I can churn butter in half the time most maids can.”

  He noted her muscular arms and big wrists. “I have no doubt.”

  “And I have large breasts and skilled hands. I can make your guards smile. Why, in just one night I can—”

  “Enough,” Tabor said. “I saw the men in the alehouse. Their enthusiasm for you was apparent.”

  She beamed and batted her lashes. “Really?”

  Tabor looked skyward. What was it about women that, when you paid them a compliment, they fished for more? “Aye. They were hungry for you.”

  “Thank you, Lord Tabor. Your men will be happy. I’ll make you proud.”

  Humored, Tabor smiled. “I wager they will find you immensely more interesting than a new shipment of armor.”

  She laughed her alehouse cackle. “And I know when to stop rubbing. Unlike armor, I do not chafe.”

  Tabor’s smile grew to a grin. Erwin Watson’s alehouse would never be the same. That was where he planned to deposit Maud, at least for now. Then he would procure the nearest merchant’s clothes before arriving at the castle. He would not endure humiliation again for these God-rotting rags.

  They approached the village and the road turned, revealing the mill and a few people mingling just outside it. Their garments were fine, finer than merchant’s garb. Tabor’s muscles tensed, and he jerked his horse to a stop.

  Chapter Ten

  Cyrill handed Sharai one of the empty mill bags. Behind her, full flour bags lined one wall of the mill, stacked waist high. Fine particles of broken wheat chaff floated in the slanting rays of sunset, and flour dust gritted his eyes. Lady Anne had brought the Marmyls to the mill, south of the castle and village, to show them the filters Tabor used to sort grades of flour. Sharai had come along, bringing her constant questions with her.

  She was lovely, though too small-breasted for his taste—only a handful. And her curiosity. Cyrill had never met such a forward young woman, one who did not simply observe, but one who watched and absorbed. He had met older women, widows who had earlier worked alongside their husbands and learned their crafts. They could manage the apprentices, buy the supplies, and not only make the barrels or breads but sell them as well. He knew widowed noblewomen like Lady Anne who, though she spent to excess, had proven herself capable of managing a castle.

  Sharai showed that type of awareness. She busied herself asking the miller about his fees and turning the flour bag inside out, inspecting the seams.

  Small thing that she was, at St. Giles’s Fair she had stared Rauf down, challenged him in front of his father and dozens of men. Cyrill respected her courage, yet she was dark. Strange.

  She also held a keen interest in his Lord Tabor. She’d even fashioned a primitive amulet for him. Most unsettling, though, was their kiss by the moat and Tabor’s subsequent behavior. He’d thenceforth lost concentration on critical details at which he was normally adept, notably anything that did not have to do with this odd Gypsy beauty.

  Had Tabor been so distracted that he’d unwittingly fallen into a trap from which he could not escape? An image flashed into Cyrill’s mind, one of Tabor’s severed head being tossed over the castle curtain at sunrise. His stomach knotted. His sister in Fritham, widowed with eight children, depended on him to share the bounty from his fief, sixty-two acres of land abutting Lord Tabor’s demesne, and he had hoped to wed again one day. With no land, he would be worthless.

  He blew a clump of flour from his armored sleeve. He must protect his liege lord, but at the moment he could not. He had failed to do so five years ago, when Rauf killed William and had come close to killing Tabor. Cyrill had failed again when Rauf tried to kill Tabor at St. Giles. Cyrill should have been guarding him.

  He should have insisted on staying in Hungerford with Tabor. Now Tabor was at Rauf’s mercy, and Cyrill knew Rauf possessed none. He tried to push the dark thoughts from his mind.

  The sound of several boys’ excited voices distracted him.

  “Lord Tabor. He’s returned. Alive,” the miller’s son’s voice shouted from outside.

  Cyrill rushed out the door to see.

  There on the back road to the mill sat Tabor on his destrier. Tabor’s greasy hair hung over his bruised face, and he wore ragged peasant clothes. A tawdry whore sat behind him, breasts spilling like melted cheese out of her neckline and her face as battered as his.

  Cyrill rushed forward, helped the whore off the horse. She smelled like an old keg of ale. Tabor dismounted, and Cyrill slapped him on the back. “Lord Tabor.”

  “’Tis good to see you, too, Cyrill. I worried for a time.”

  “Worried? By the saints, I thought you dead,” Cyrill said. Then a putrid stench hit his nostrils, and he backed away. His lord smelled like a privy.

  Holy Pope, and the Marmyls here. The earl huffed behind him, finally catching up. He was tall, but a back injury revealed a limp despite his strong legs. Sniffing to identify the odor, Lord Marmyl’s smile of welcome faded.

  Ladies Marmyl and A
nne joined him, along with Lady Emilyne, her cool expression unchanging.

  Lord Tabor looked about, as if to find escape. Exhaustion strained his eyes, making him look older than his five and twenty summers.

  Sharai joined them, her brown eyes wide, fixed on Tabor.

  The red-haired whore scrambled off the destrier and bowed low, then backed up, staying close to the horse. She stood almost as tall as Tabor. Her hair glowed in the late sunlight, and freckles danced across her wide, bruised face.

  Tabor gave a respectful bow to the earl. “Lord and Lady Marmyl. Mother. Lady Emilyne.” He reached for her hand, but she pulled away.

  The earl’s greying eyebrows drew tight. Marmyl, Cyrill knew, was a man of power and considerable wealth, but few words. He offered a stiff smile. “Lord Tabor. We worried for you.” He regarded the wench. “Obviously for naught.”

  A glimmer of anger lit Tabor’s eyes, but he smiled it away, and Cyril released the breath he’d been holding. He must keep his composure with the earl.

  “Without Maud, here, I might not have returned,” Tabor said. “She helped Sir John escape, and he protected Fritham and kept Rauf engaged in battle so we could safely return.”

  Lady Anne’s small mouth drooped at the corners, revealing her disapproval. “Well done, Maud. And you guarded him all the way back here. How good of you.” Her blue eyes shone with revulsion.

  Maud smiled broadly. “Thank you, my lady. I was hard pressed, and Lord Tabor needed a dagger.” She lifted her skirt, revealing pleasant, muscular legs laced with a collection of knives and a small whip. “I had plenty, so we two made a good pair.” Warmed by her sunny smile and shapely legs, Cyrill enjoyed the view.

  The Marmyls clearly did not.

  Only the bubbling stream and mill wheel broke the silence. At a distance, the urchins seemed to hold their breath.