Part 1 (2/2)

”Lay down your weapons!”

The command was shouted from somewhere high up in the trees and Bayard's gaze shot upward, rewarded by nothing but swaying branches and splintered sunlight.

”Bows and swords to the ground or you shall all win the privilege of joining your fallen comrades!”

The breath hissed through Bayard's teeth with impotent fury. His keen eyes searched the greenwood but he could see nothing-no pale flash of skin or clothing, no movement in the trees or on the ground. A further lightning-quick glance identified the arrows protruding from the chests of the dead soldiers. Slim and deadly, almost three feet long and tipped in steel, they were capable of piercing bullhide or mail breastplates as if they were cutting through cheese. Moreover, the arrows were shot from the taut strings of the Welsh contraptions known as longbows. In the hands of an expert, an arrow shot from a longbow could outdistance the squatter, thicker quarrels fired from a crossbow by a hundred yards or more. Many a train of merchants had been waylaid and fired upon from such a distance that they could not even distinguish their attackers from the trees.

As was the case now, Bayard thought angrily. He and his men were like ducks on a pond and, unwilling to fall helplessly to a slaughter, he had no choice but to reluctantly give his men the signal to lower their weapons.

”Who dares to challenge our right of way?” the captain demanded, his voice a low, seething growl. ”Who is this dead man? Let him step forward and show his face!”

A laugh, full and deep-throated, had the same effect on the tension-filled atmosphere as a sudden crack of thunder.

Servanne de Briscourt, her hand tightly clasped to Biddy's and her shoulders firmly encircled by the fierce protectiveness of a matronly arm, was startled enough by the unexpected sound to twist her head around and search out the source of the laughter.

A man had stepped out from behind the screen of hawthorns and had moved to position himself brazenly in the middle of the road. His long legs, clad in skintight deer-hide leggings, were braced wide apart; his ma.s.sive torso, made more impressive by a jerkin of gleaming black wolf pelts, expanded farther as he insolently planted one hand on his waist and the other on the curved support of the longbow he held casually by his side.

Standing well over six feet tall, his body was a superb tower of muscle that commanded the eye upward to the coldest, cruelest pair of eyes Servanne had ever seen. Pale blue-gray, they were, twin mirrors of ice and frost, steel and iron. Piercing eyes. Eyes that held more secrets than a soul should want to know, or, if knowing, would live to tell. They were strange eyes for so dark a man-hair, clothing, and weathered complexion all combined to make it so-and it was with the greatest difficulty that Servanne relented to the tugging pressure of Biddy's hands and turned her face away, burying it against the m.u.f.fling s.h.i.+eld of ponderously soft bosoms.

”I bid you welcome to my forest, Bayard of Northumbria.” The villain laughed softly again. ”Had I known in advance it was you daring to venture across my land, I should have arranged a much warmer welcome.”

The knight's eyes narrowed to slits behind the steel nasal of his helm. How, by the Devil's work, did this outlaw know his ident.i.ty? And what did he mean by his his forest, forest, his his land? Most tracts of forest, most measures of land that comprised the vast demesne of Lincolnwoods had been part of the Wardieu holdings since their ancestors had crossed from Normandy with William the b.a.s.t.a.r.d. land? Most tracts of forest, most measures of land that comprised the vast demesne of Lincolnwoods had been part of the Wardieu holdings since their ancestors had crossed from Normandy with William the b.a.s.t.a.r.d.

An invisible hand clawed sharply down the length of Bayard's spine, all but tearing the breath from his body.

By G.o.d's holy ordinance ... it couldn't be! No! No, it couldn't be! The man was dead ... dead on the hot desert sands of Palestine! Bayard himself had seen the body, had given it an extra kick with a contemptuous boot before leaving the corpse to swell and burst in the searing sun. There was no earthly way a man could have survived such wounds as Bayard had witnessed. Flesh peeled from the bone, an arm half ripped from the socket, ribs crushed to b.l.o.o.d.y pulp ... it simply was not possible. Even if the sun had not blistered him to rot, the vultures, ants, and packs of wild dogs would have finished the job.

And yet ... those eyes! Where in Christendom could there be another pair so like them?

”So. You do remember me, Bayard of Northumbrian,” the outlaw said quietly, noting the intense scrutiny.

”I-I do not know you apart from any other sc.u.m who roams the forest with claims of renegade sovereignty. As for giving warm welcome-” The captain raised the crossbow he had not quite convinced his fingers to relinquish into the dirt, and, with the speed of many years' practice governing his action and aim, Bayard squeezed the trigger and sent a quarrel streaking past his horse's ear to the target who all but filled the roadway ahead.

The outlaw neither jumped nor flinched out of the way. With a controlled swiftness, he raised his own bow and snapped an arrow, the aim carrying it straight and true to the eye socket on the left side of Bayard's helm. The impact of the strike jerked the knight's head back, causing his arms to be thrown upward, and the quarrel to be launched harmlessly into the trees. Bayard could not know this, for by then he was dead, sliding off the back of his mount with the same sluggish lethargy as the viscous flow of blood and brains that leaked from beneath his helmet.

Almost simultaneously a second disturbance erupted along the line of guardsmen. One of the knights, wearing not the Wardieu gypon of pale blue but the De Briscourt colours of scarlet and yellow, shouted for his men to attack and drew his sword. The shout became a scream of agony as one of the outlaws loosed an arrow that punched through the knight's thigh and pinned him to the leather guard of his saddle.

”Sir Roger!” Servanne cried, but her protest was smothered instantly and violently against Biddy's heaving breast.

Undaunted, the wounded Sir Roger de Chesnai made a second attempt to raise his sword and this time, was stopped by the bearlike hand of yet another outlaw-a huge, barrel-chested Welshman who grinned with enough ferocity to suggest he would enjoy crus.h.i.+ng a skull or two for sport. Sir Roger's fingers flexed open, releasing the hilt of his sword. The Welshman nodded approval while behind him, the outlaw who had fired the arrow stepped out of the greenery, nocked another shaft in his bow, and swept the armed weapon slowly along the row of ashen-faced guards, his brow raised in askance.

As one, the escort of mercenaries and men-at-arms lifted their hands away from any object that might be misconstrued as a threat. Only their eyes dared to move, flinching side to side as branches bent and saplings sprang apart to bring a dozen more armed outlaws out from behind their places of concealment. A dozen! Expectations of seeing at least two or three times as many attackers brought renewed flushes of anger and outrage to the faces of the humiliated knights. Seeing this and knowing the p.r.i.c.kly honour that governed these men, the wolf-clad leader moved to forstall any rash attempts to launch a counterattack. He turned his bow in the direction of the huddled group of women and coolly took aim at the nearest soft b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

”Now then, gentlemen. If you will be so kind as to step away from your weapons and mounts, my men will happily instruct you on what is required of you next.” The leader paused and smiled benignly. ”Any refusal to obey will, of course, result in one less lovely lady to escort to Bloodmoor Keep.”

The men exchanged hostile glances, but in the end, their stringent code of chivalry left them no choice but to do as they were told. They unbuckled belts and baldrics to remove any further temptation presented by knives and swords. Disarmed, the knights were separated from the rest of the cavalcade and herded to a clearing alongside the roadway where their purses were systematically removed along with any inviting bit of silver or gold adornment. Surcoats, tunics, and s.h.i.+rts of chain mail were also ordered removed and tossed onto one of the carts which had been emptied of its less practical cargo of feminine underpinnings. The squires, pages, servants, and wagoners who traveled on foot at the rear of the train did not require more than a barked command to scramble en ma.s.se to the base of an enormous oak tree. There they were similarly stripped to their undergarments, bound together, and left clinging and quivering in the pungent forest chill.

This left only the women, who were still mounted, still crowded together in the middle of the road.

”Do not say a word, my lady,” Biddy whispered urgently. ”Not one word to draw attention, and perhaps these filthy scoundrels will send us peaceably on our way without further mischief.”

Until the very instant of Biddy's warning, Servanne had not given a thought as to what ”further mischief” might entail. She had never been waylaid or robbed before, but knew full well of those who had been abused, raped, or even murdered in the name of outlaw justice.

”Keep your head down, child,” Biddy spluttered. ”And your eyes lowered.”

An easy order to issue, Servanne thought. Impossible to obey, however, especially when Biddy's own words triggered the need to search out the man who now held their fate in his hands. And what hands they were-strong and lean, with long tapered fingers that held the oversized bow with savage authority. He spoke in clear, unb.a.s.t.a.r.dized French, which must mean he was no common, illiterate thief. For that matter, not a man among his troop looked desperately twisted by corruption or squint-eyed with greed. Not at all like the half-starved, ragged bands of peasants who usually took to hiding in the woods to escape the administrators of the king's laws. Indeed, had they been in armour instead of lincoln green, one would be hard-pressed to distinguish between thief and guard.

Drawn by the lure of forbidden fruit, Servanne disobeyed Biddy's adamant grip and studied the bold, calmly purposeful outlaw who had so casually slain Bayard of Northumbria, and who now shamelessly threatened the life of the dark-eyed Helvise. His hair was long, curling thickly to his shoulders in rich chestnut waves. His face defied description, being too swarthy to fit the Norman ideal of golden handsomeness, too squared to imply n.o.ble birth. A Saxon? But for the eyes and the demeanor, she might have agreed, but he was no ordinary outlaw, no plow-worn peasant.

He was, however, dressed to fit the role of forester, garbed as they all were in greens and browns, the exception being the outer vest of wolf pelts. Beneath it, his loose-sleeved s.h.i.+rt of green linsey-woolsey opened in a carelessly deep V almost to his waist, revealing an indecent wealth of wiry sable curls matted thickly over hard, bulging muscles.

The weapon he held appeared to be nothing more than a six-foot length of slender wood forced into an arc and held taut by a bowstring of resined gut. Far more graceful in design than the stubby, iron-bound crossbow, it was also far superior in range, swiftness, and accuracy. Bayard had been a full ten paces from her side when he had been cut down, yet there were tiny dots of crimson splashed across her mare's forequarters attesting to the power that lay behind the grace.

Her attention was briefly diverted to the dead captain and the rest of his subdued guards. Servanne could not help but wonder at the audacity, and in turn, the lunacy of the men who dared risk the ire of Lucien Wardieu, Baron de Gournay. Ambus.h.i.+ng travelers was no small crime by anyone's standard, but raising a sword against the blazon of one of England's most powerful barons was ... sheer madness! De Gournay would spare no effort, even to burning down every last square inch of forest in Lincoln, to respond to the insult. And his revenge upon those who had committed the offense ... !

As it happened, Servanne was in the midst of contemplating-in hideously graphic detail-the many possible forms her betrothed's retribution would take, when the piercing gray-blue eyes began scanning the frightened faces of the women. An oddity in the group caused them to flick sharply back to the only gaze that was not instantly and contritely s.h.i.+elded behind tear-studded lashes.

If he was surprised to see instead the small, tight smile that compressed her lips, the outlaw leader did not show it. If she expected him to be rendered speechlessly contrite, or to become paralyzed with fear over the sudden realization of the enormity of his crime, Servanne was sadly disappointed.

”I had heard the Dragon had snared himself quite a beauty,” he murmured speculatively. ”Ah well, messengers have been known to err before on the side of generosity.”

Infuriated by his insolence, not to mention the derision in his comment, Servanne pulled out of Biddy's embrace and squared her slender shoulders.

”I beg your pardon, m'sieur,” she said, the chill of untold generations of n.o.bility in her voice. ”But do you know who I am?”

A swift, fierce smile stole across his face and left again without a trace as he moved forward several measured paces. ”Has the excitement caused you to forget your name, Lady de Briscourt? If so, I humbly crave your pardon for our methods, but alas, stealth and haste are among our most effective weapons.”

Two hot stains blossomed on Servanne's cheeks as she stared into the rain-gray eyes. ”Since you obviously know who I am and where I am bound, you must also be aware of whose protection I travel under, and against whose honour you give insult.”

This time the grin lingered noticeably. ”My heart does palpitate with the knowledge, my lady.”

”It will palpitate with a good deal more if you do not stand aside at once and let us pa.s.s on our way unmolested!”

”I am afraid I cannot do that. Why, to have gone to all this trouble to stop you, only to stand aside and let you go on your way again ... surely even someone so pure and innocent as yourself can see there would be little profit for us in that. As for molesting you”-the smouldering eyes took a lazy inventory of her finer points, and there were not many readily visible through the bulk of the samite tunic-”I regret to say I have more important matters to contend with at the moment. But before you puff up with more righteous indignation, be informed that neither you nor any of your lovely ladies will come to any harm while you are under my protection. On that you have my most solemn word.”

”Your protection? protection? Your Your word?” she scoffed. ”And just who might word?” she scoffed. ”And just who might you you be, wolf's head? be, wolf's head? You You who dare to challenge the authority of Lucien Wardieu, Baron de Gournay!” who dare to challenge the authority of Lucien Wardieu, Baron de Gournay!”

The outlaw moved closer, taking the mare's bridle in his hand to guard against any attempt by her rider to bolt.

”The name the sheriff has chosen to give me in explaining the lax condition of his spine is ... the Black Wolf of Lincoln.” He paused to watch the effect of his words ripple through the ranks of his rapt audience. ”The name given me by G.o.d is ... Lucien Wardieu, Baron de Gournay.”

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