LITMIR.BIZ

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lean cheekbones were smeared with a dark substance that could either be blood or mud. His arms were stretched out, roped to the branch so roughly there was definitely blood at his wrists. Looking directly at her, he lifted his mouth in a lop-sided smile. He mouthed her name, ‘Cecily.’

      Edmund muttered at Judhael and drew Adam’s gaze. A slight narrowing of the green eyes told her Adam had marked Edmund’s unsplinted leg.

      ‘Emma,’ Cecily whispered, desperation putting wild ideas into her head. ‘Give me your eating knife.’

      ‘Don’t be a fool!’

      Cecily swallowed a groan. It was hopeless. What could one girl do with an eating knife? But she could not stand by and watch when—

      ‘Edmund tells me that you are Sir Adam Wymark,’ Judhael said, speaking in English. ‘The “hero” of Hastings and our self-appointed lord and master.’ He threw a disparaging glance at George Le Blanc. ‘This must be one of your Bretons. Only one? Odd—I’d heard you had a whole troop. Careless of you not to bring the rest with you today—have the others deserted?’

      A lock of dark hair flopped across Adam’s unhurt eye. He tossed his head to clear his vision, but the yoke on his shoulders unbalanced him, and he struggled to keep his footing in the mire. Someone laughed. Cecily’s nails dug into her palms.

      ‘Lost your tongue?’ Judhael asked. ‘Or can’t you understand me?’

      ‘I understand you,’ Adam replied. His English was heavily accented, but his voice was strong.

      ‘My man tells me you ran into his arms like a long-lost lover,’ Judhael said, folding his arms. ‘Now, why should you do that?’

      Adam stood as straight as a man could with his arms strapped to a wooden yoke. ‘I came for my lady.’

      Tears stung at the back of Cecily’s eyes, and the scene blurred. Oh, Adam, you idiot.

      ‘Your lady?’ Judhael’s voice was harsh, disbelieving. ‘You came for Cecily Fulford?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘Liar—you think to trick me. The garrison at Winchester put you up to this. We know you were there this morning. You have come to try and discover where I have hidden the silver.’

      ‘No, but tell me where it is and I’ll be happy to pass the message on.’

      ‘Gunni!’

      ‘Judhael?’

      ‘Our guest doesn’t seem to realise he is in grave trouble. Bring it home to him, will you?’

      Rolling up his sleeves, Gunni clenched his fists. Cecily clutched Emma, and when Gunni drew his arm back to strike she flinched and shut her eyes.

      ‘So you’re Gunni?’ Adam’s voice, almost conversational. ‘The shepherd?’

      The thud of Gunni’s fist connecting with Adam’s stomach had her eyes flying open in time to see Adam double over with a grunt. As he toppled, one end of the yoke thumped into the mud, bringing him down on his knees. Cecily’s heart contracted. He looked weary beyond thought. How much of a beating had he sustained up on the hill?

      ‘You’re Lufu’s man?’ Adam gasped. A trickle of blood ran down from his hairline.

      ‘Lufu?’ Gunni froze in the act of aiming a booted foot at Adam’s ribs. ‘What about Lufu?’

      ‘She’ll be all right—’ another gasp ‘—we think.’

      Reaching for Adam’s gambeson, Gunni hauled him to his feet, yoke and all. ‘What do you mean, you think she’ll be all right?’

      Adam swayed under the weight of the yoke. ‘Le Blanc there found her.’ He paused to search for words. ‘By the little…shelter, I think the word is. Your shelter, I was told. She was unconscious.’

      ‘Liar! Filthy liar!’

      Adam shook his head. ‘She’d been beaten and is in a far worse state than I.’

      Abruptly Gunni released Adam and, horror dawning on his face, turned. ‘Judhael? Brun said you went that way. Did you see anything?’

      ‘No.’

      Gunni’s gaze sharpened. ‘Judhael, you wouldn’t…?’

      ‘Of course I wouldn’t,’ Judhael said, swift as an arrow. ‘The bloody Frank did it.’

      ‘No!’ Cecily burst out. ‘Adam would never do such a thing! But you…that bite…that bite on your hand…’ Across the clearing, a corner of Adam’s mouth lifted. It was the smallest of movements, virtually imperceptible, but Cecily was absurdly alert to everything about him—from the bruising on his face, to his empty sword scabbard, to the mud on his boots…

      Judhael stalked across the boggy clearing, elbowed Emma aside and towered over her. ‘Soft, is he?’

      ‘Not in the least,’ Cecily said. Her skin was like ice, but she refused to quail before him. ‘But nor is he cruel. Adam had his man punish Lufu for laziness, but he only put her in the stocks. He wouldn’t have her beaten. None of them would. But you…your hand testifies to what you have done.’

      Emma’s breath hitched, and Cecily realised that Gunni was not the only person to be watching Judhael in appalled disbelief. Emma and Edmund wore expressions that must mirror her own. This was her father’s housecarl, Judhael, but he was not the honourable man of old. He had become a tyrant.

      ‘Brun? Stigand?’ Edmund gestured at two of the men by the campfire. ‘You went out with Judhael earlier. What have you got to say?’ The two looked uncomfortably at Judhael and clamped their lips together. Surely they would exonerate Judhael if he had had nothing to do with Lufu being hurt? Their silence condemned him. ‘Judhael?’ Edmund’s hand went to his sword hilt.

      ‘Sweet Christ—as if I would! Surely you don’t believe his word over mine? The blasted Breton is trying to divide us. Gunni, continue.’

      ‘He did it,’ Le Blanc said, his gaze pinned on Judhael. ‘I…how do you say?…I watched him.’

      Gunni’s face suffused. ‘You bastard, Judhael!’ A large fist slammed into Judhael’s face and Judhael went down. Gunni looked at Adam. ‘At my hut, you said?’

      ‘Aye.’

      Gunni snatched a horse from a scout, flung himself into the saddle, and was off, mud spraying in his wake. A skin-shrivelling silence gripped those who remained. Something cold was thrust into Cecily’s palm. Emma’s eating knife.

      ‘Emma?’ But Emma was not looking her way—she was staring at Judhael as though he’d crawled out of a cesspit.

      Not stopping to think, Cecily hurled herself across the clearing to Adam. No one attempted to hold her back. She gave a swift, featherlight caress to his bruised cheekbone and swollen eye, and was rewarded with one of his lop-sided grins. And then she was sawing for all she was worth at the leather ribbons binding him to the yoke.

      ‘Hurry, Princess,’ Adam murmured, glancing over her shoulder at someone coming up behind her.

      ‘I know, I know.’ But the chill had had turned her fingers into thumbs, and the leather resisted Emma’s eating knife, and Cecily was terrified lest she slice through one of the arteries on Adam’s wrists, and…

      ‘Let me,’ a voice said, directly behind her. Edmund, with Gurth at his side…

      Desperately, Cecily gripped Emma’s knife.

      ‘Gurth, the yoke,’ Edmund said. ‘Hold it fast.’ Gurth moved behind Adam.

      ‘Edmund, no,’ Cecily moaned.

      Edmund grinned, and for a second Cecily glimpsed the old Edmund—the Edmund she had known in her childhood, before she had been sent to the convent, before the Normans had crossed the Narrow Sea. Edmund’s seax flashed,

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