Knave's Honour

Hortensa was right about that, too, and yet.” I can’t leave a man in such a state,” Jane declared as she pushed away Hortensa’s none-too-slender arm. “He might die before our very eyes.”

“What if he’s a thievin’, rapin’ murderer?” Hortensa protested as she reluctantly followed her mistress, trotting to keep up with Jane’s brisk pace. “What would your poor sainted mother say?”

Her mother had never been poor, and she would never be a saint. “Probably exactly what you’re saying.”

Despite what Hortensa might want to believe, her mother’s postmortem censure had no power to influence Jane. She’d lived too long under her mother’s thumb while she was alive not to enjoy her freedom now that she was dead.

Jane knelt beside the man and gingerly parted the torn surcoat of thick black wool where a blade had cut through both surcoat and mail into the right shoulder; the mail, cloth and flesh beneath were now crusted with dried blood.

How long had it been since he’d been wounded? How had he managed to live despite that grave injury? He must have lost a quantity of blood.

He groaned.

Startled, she sat back swiftly.

“Careful, my lady!” Hortensa unnecessarily warned.

Jane looked up at her anxiously hovering maid. “He’s too seriously injured to do us any harm,” she said before she gently rolled the stranger onto his back.

He moaned piteously and his arms flopped as if they had no muscles. More blood trickled from his full lips and matted his grizzled beard and hair. His nose arched like one of the Roman emperors whose busts she’d seen in London, and his skin was brown from hours in the sun. A soldier, surely, and perhaps a knight.

“Sir?” she ventured as she looked for more wounds. She couldn’t see any more, thank God. “Sir?”

When he didn’t answer or open his eyes, she laid a hand on his forehead.

“God’s wounds, he’s burning. Hortensa, run back to the manor and fetch two men with a wagon. We’ve got to get him home and in a bed. Then go for Brother Wilbur. This man’s wounds and fever are too severe for my skills.”

“But my lady, we don’t know nothing about him—who he is nor how he come here. Your mother would never do such a thing.”

Jane pressed her lips together. No, her selfish, querulous mother would never bring a wounded stranger into her household—but she was not her mother.

“My mother is dead,” she said firmly, “and I’m chatelaine of Sheddlesby, so if I order you to fetch my men to take this poor Samaritan back to my hall, you will do it.”

“Yes, my lady,” Hortensa replied, suitably chastised by Jane’s forceful words.

As Hortensa ran off toward Sheddlesby, Jane took the stranger’s callused hand in hers.

“You’re going to be all right,” she softly vowed. “I’ll take care of you, whoever you may be.”

CHAPTER FIVE

NORMALLY, LIZETTE enjoyed being in the cool, quiet woods. Many a time she’d fled to the forest outside Averette to get away from the conflict in the household: her tyrannical father raging at her poor, sick mother; Adelaide doing her best to come between them and make peace; in more recent years, Adelaide’s unwanted suitors, who could be amusing or interesting, but just as often a lascivious nuisance; Gillian gravely looking on or going to the kitchen to be with the servants, endearing herself to them with her quiet, competent ways.

Alone in the forest, Lizette could pretend to live the exciting adventures she craved. Sometimes she was a poacher sneaking up on a mighty stag; sometimes she was a ‘Gyptian girl, telling fortunes or dancing for money. Other times, she was a bold knight tilting at trees with a long stick, guiding her imaginary trusty steed. or else she was simply Lizette, singing with the birds—exhibiting her one true talent to them alone.

Unfortunately, this forced march through trees and undergrowth, over a barely visible path, fleeing men who wanted to do her harm, led by an outlaw who’d pretended to be a knight, was something else entirely.

Finn abruptly held up his hand to halt them.

They had come to a road, Lizette realized. Keldra sat on the ground and tried to catch her breath, while Garreth trotted up beside Finn.

After looking up and down the road, Finn glanced at the panting Keldra, then addressed Lizette. “I think it’s safe enough to use the road a ways.”

Thank God—but if he was expecting her to thank him, he was going to be disappointed. He’d been silent and sullen, brooding and grim since his return, although it was his own fault if he was annoyed that she’d spoken to Garreth. If he’d been less mysterious and more forthcoming, she wouldn’t have had to ask questions of his friend.

“It can’t be so very far now,” she said to Keldra to encourage the girl.

“I hope not, my lady, or my legs are going to give out entirely.”

“Mine aren’t much better,” Lizette confessed as she helped her maid to stand, and that wasn’t a lie.

If they had to keep walking at such a brisk pace for much longer, she’d have to ask Finn to let them rest again, and she didn’t want to do that. She would hate to imply that she couldn’t keep up with him.

As they started for the road, Finn ordered young Garreth to help Keldra. He looked as if he’d like to refuse; however, she could tell from the set of Finn’s shoulders that he wouldn’t welcome a refusal and so, obviously, could Garreth.

Then the Irishman said, “My lady, I would have a word with you.”

It was a command, not a request, which did nothing to assuage her ill humor. “So, you deign to speak to me now?”

He gave her a sour look as he started down the road, expecting her to follow as if she were his trained hound. Unfortunately, since she had absolutely no idea where she was, she had no choice but to follow him.

“During the rest of the remaining time together we may share, if you have questions, ask them of me,” he said. “Leave Garreth in peace.”

“I didn’t think I was upsetting him,” she countered, “and your secretive manner left me no choice. Is it really so surprising that I’d want to know about you? I’ve put our lives in your hands.”

Scowling, Finn stepped over a puddle in the rutted road. “Very well, my lady. Ask me what questions you will, and I’ll do my best to answer.”

Now that he was willing to respond, she wasn’t sure what to say. She would start, she decided, with his half brother. “What has your half brother done that’s more shameful than stealing?”

The Irishman’s jaw clenched and his strides lengthened a little, as if he’d like to hurry away from her. She wasn’t about to let that happen, so she quickened her pace. “You said you would answer my questions,” she reminded him.

Before he could, a pheasant, roused from the verge of the road, flew up into the sky in a flurry of wings, and they both checked their steps. In the next moment, an arrow caught the bird, sending it plummeting into the bushes ahead of them.

“Good shot, Garreth!” the Irishman exclaimed. “No need to worry about our supper tonight.”

“Aye!” Garreth replied as he jogged down the road toward his fallen catch, leaving Keldra and the others behind.

“While Garreth’s getting the bird, we’ll rest a bit,” Finn said. He gestured at a nearby stump. “Keldra, you sit here. Garreth won’t be long.”

He turned an inscrutable gaze onto Lizette. “If you’ll walk over there with me, my lady, I’ll answer your questions in private.”

Lizette told herself it was proper that he speak so formally. That denoted respect, and a necessary change from his casual insolence. After all, he was an outlaw and a thief. She was a lady and the king’s ward.

The Irishman led her a little farther down the road and pointed at another stump for her to sit upon, out of earshot of Keldra, although not out of sight.

Finn leaned his weight on one leg, crossed his arms over his broad chest, fixed his steadfast brown eyes on her and said, “Ryder and I had the same bitter, broken mother, but different fathers. For the past ten years, Ryder’s been in a monastery in the north, studying, or so the plan was, to be a priest.

“Lately he decided against the priesthood. Celibacy, apparently, was not for him.”