LITMIR.BIZ

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heels. Half a dozen more of the young hotbloods were rounding the corner of the timbered inn, drawing steel as they ran.

      “Until another time, seigneur!” Jean rasped.

      He ran for his life, knowing that the slightest misstep or blunder would give his pursuers a chance to flesh their blades in his body. Pray God that Simone was packed and in the saddle. Pray God that his black gelding was eager to run!

      He skidded on the yard pebbles, then raced for the open doorway of the inn livery stable. He saw Simone in a hooded chaperon, mounted on her gray—a fast mare he’d traded the two horses and a gold tournois for just outside the Abbey of Saint Madard in Soissons—and bringing the black gelding with her by the reins. Her face was flushed with excitement as she stared beyond him at the oncoming young men.

      “Hurry, Jean!” she called. “Vite!”

      He went up over the gelding’s cruppers with both hands spread on its croup and hit the saddle with a jarring shock that ran up into his backbone. He banged a toe into the black’s ribs.

      Then Simone was a slim figure in her enveloping cloak half a pace ahead of him, bent low across the whipping mane of her fleet mare. They raced stirrup to stirrup out of the inn yard, swinging south on the winding road to Châlons. Jean blessed the foresight that had made him exchange those plow horses for the gray and the fate that had taught Simone, as a farm girl, to ride as well as himself.

      They took the road at a driving gallop, dirt clumps flying up from under the thudding hoofs, the wind of their passage fluttering her cloak and cutting through his leather jerkin. His Missiglia sword lay in the inn yard, dropped in his feverish haste. Without it, he was defenseless.

      Again he cursed those young hotbloods, under his breath but savagely, consigning them to hellfire for their efforts. To flee, like a terrified hare before the hounds, in front of Étienne Aymon and his Montmirail companions was a bitter mouthful for the proud Jean of Orleans. Twice he stood in the stirrups, turning to search the road behind him, both times seeing them hotfooting it after him, no more than a mile away.

      His lips firmed. He must lose them! Without a blade he would be unable to defend himself or Simone. He knew enough of their kind to understand what would happen to Simone once they’d disposed of him. A sickness came into his middle at the thought. He’d grown fond of the blonde woman in the few days he had known her.

      “Faster, faster,” he called, and touched a prick-spur to the gelding.

      Both animals responded by lengthening their strides. Now, when he looked back, it became harder and harder to see their pursuers. The mile became two, then three. By dawn and with luck, they might shake them completely.

      The road curved through a little woods here. The overhanging branches were so thickly entwined they shut out the moon, the sky and its stars. Te Jean it appeared they were running through a Stygian blackness with neither beginning nor end.

      And then the world erupted around them.

      Men came leaping from underbrush and thickets, from behind tree boles and fallen logs, dirty clapperclaws in stinking furs and wolfskins and untanned hides, unkempt and ragged. Their hands caught at bridles and reins, pulling the mare and gelding to a halt. Greasy fingers yanked at Simone, bore her from the saddle to the ground. Jean went backward himself, flailing with fists and legs, striking hard again and again before sheer weight of numbers pinned his back to the ground.

      “Rich pickin’s!” howled a voice.

      “Our luck be turned for fair!”

      “The woman’s mine!”

      “No—mine!”

      They might have fought like the beasts they had become had not Jean cried out, “Wait, you fools! Wait! Listen to me!”

      A hand cuffed him hard alongside his jaw, but he shook his head to free his numbing wits and cried, “If you want gold—listen!”

      The word was a magic incantation that threw a hush over them. A burly brute whose naked chest and back was sheathed in thick hair came crowding through the others, leering. Behind him he dragged a shivering Simone, trying to be modest in the few tatters the lusting fingers had left on her

      “What’s this talk of gold?”

      Jean said, “I’m a runaway servant. The man I served is chasing us. I stole his mistress and his money. Here—see for yourselves!”

      They let him go long enough for him to undo the tie strings of the purse in which he carried his dice winnings. His hand threw a score of the ecus d’or among the cutthroats. The men scrabbled in the dirt for the coins, but their hairy leader held his pig eyes tight on Jean, who had struggled to his feet and stood swaying among them.

      The hairy man growled, “Oui, it’s gold. There’s more of it in the purse you carry.”

      “And even more coming along the road with Sieur Aymon!”

      They cried out at that, turning to stare back along the forest road. Their leader grinned, showing blackened teeth.

      “I can take your gold and their gold, no thanks to you,” he said, yanking Simone to her knees before him. “I’ll take your woman, too.”

      “I can help you get the gold with little effort,” Jean said desperately, knowing the bitter taste of defeat. He watched the hairy man take a handful of Simone’s loosened hair and turn her face upward. “You won’t lose a man if you listen to me.”

      The bandit chieftain laughed harshly. “What do I care for these pigs’ lives? Most of them have lived too long already.”

      The men were muttering behind him. Jean read their hate and fear of this brutish man who led them. He spoke to them, ignoring the hairy man. “Well? What do you say? Will you let this two-legged beast browbeat you for the rest of your lives? Or will you use what little wits the good God gave you to grow rich in a single hour with my help?”

      The brute roared and leaped, a dagger gleaming in his closed fist, but Jean had been expecting this; he pivoted on a foot and caught the hairy arm, brought it over a shoulder and whirled. The hairy man flew through the air ten feet to land hard on his back with the wind knocked out of him.

      The clapperclaws stared from their leader to this surprising newcomer. Some of them grinned in delight at what they had seen. A few scowled. But all of them showed the light of greed in their eyes.

      Jean said, “Gold for all. Gold to buy you wine or a tavern wench! Eh? What about it?”

      Simone had crept across the road to kneel beside Jean’s legs. Jean smiled down at her, touched her head with his hand.

      The outlaws looked from the woman to the man and then to their fallen chief. Indecision and doubt made them fidget from one foot to the other. Jean raised his hand.

      “Listen! The Sieur Aymon comes at the gallop. Make up your minds. Is it my plan or not? Without yonder beast—his wits too addled to serve you now!—to command you, you’re no better than animals before a plow. Well? Do you follow my plan?”

      “Oui!” said an old man.

      “Oui Yes. Yes!” the others cried.

      “Then back into the woods, and be ready to leap when I cry out, ‘À Valois for vengeance!’ You understand?”

      They melted in among the tree boles with the stealthiness of those whose lives depend upon their silence. Two of them dragged the hairy man between them. The road was empty. Simone rose to her feet, the tatters of her blue velvet kirtle hanging in shreds about her white hips and long legs.

      “They are beasts!” she whispered to him fiercely. “Ride now—while we can!”

      His laughter was soft but savage. “And forget Étienne Aymon, who rides to slay me as he slew my father?”

      Her gray eyes were wide with shock. “Would you risk both our lives

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