"I AM NOT AFRAID OF YOU, GRIFFYN RENAUD.' "I did not say you were afraid of me." A darkened spiral of hair had sprung forward over her forehead and he brushed it aside with a breath of a kiss. "You are afraid of this," he whispered, trailing the caress to her temple and down to the curl of her ear. "And this." He bent his head and she felt the black silk of his hair on her cheek. His lips were on her throat, in the crook of her neck, and she closed her eyes, her breath coming even hotter and faster than before. Her heart beat with a wildness that frightened her, and she felt as if she were standing on the edge of a cliff, the hypnotic lure of danger pulling her forward and the safe sanctuary of solid ground calling her back. "How ... can you expect me to believe you?" she gasped. "After everything that has happened ... the lies, the dis- honesty, the cruel games—" "That night we spent together at Gaillard was no game." With her tears spilling faster than she could blink them free, she watched the dark outline of his face bend toward her. "Tell me," he rasped, "you do not believe this...." HIGH PRAISE FOR MARSHA CANHAM, WINNER OF THE ROMANTIC TIMES LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD, AND HER PREVIOUS NOVELS: ACROSS A MOONLIT SEA "CANHAM AT HER BEST ... No one tells a swash-buckling tale like she does. The pages snap with witty dialogue and rich, detailed description."—Affaire de Coeur "[A] TEMPESTUOUS, ADVENTUROUS AND RIP-ROARING HIGH SEAS ADVENTURE ... Marsha Canham ensures herself a place as queen of romantic adventure."—Romantic Times "A RIVETING ROMANCE ... pulse-pounding action and swashbuckling adventure."—Romance Forever "A FIRESTORM OF DANGER AND DESIRE." —Romantic Reader STRAIGHT FOR THE HEART STRAIGHT FOR THE HEART GOES STRAIGHT TO THE READER'S HEART with its winning combination of an absorbing romance and fascinating characters. Marsha Canham has another winner with this dazzling novel that readers will savor."-—Romantic Times "CANHAM DEALS OUT PLENTY OF SURPRISING TWISTS."—Booklist IN THE SHADOW OF MIDNIGHT "DEFINITELY ONE OF THE BEST NOVELS OF THE YEAR . . . Marsha Canham has written a fast-paced, action-packed medieval romance."—Affaire de Coeur "Ms. Canham skillfully blends a great deal of historical detail into this scintillating tale of brave men fighting for justice and the women who share their dreams."— Romantic Times "DRAMATIC AND SENSUOUS ... MARVELOUS ... OUTSTANDING ... A tale of grand proportions... Top-notch from start to finish!"—Rendezvous Dell Books by Marsha Canham PALE MOON RIDER THE BLOOD OF ROSES THE PRIDE OF LIONS ACROSS A MOONLIGHT SEA IN THE SHADOW OF MIDNIGHT THROUGH A DARK MIST UNDER THE DESERT MOON THE LAST ARROW MIDNIGHT HONOR Published by Dell Publishing a division of Random House, Inc. 1540 Broadway New York, New York 10036 If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as "unsold and destroyed" to the publisher and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this "stripped book." Copyright © 1997 by Marsha Canham All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. The trademark Dell® is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. ISBN: 0-440-22257-5 Printed in the United States of America Published simultaneously in Canada May 1997 10 9 8 7 OPM About eight centuries ago, an unknown bard sat under a tree in the vast expanse of Sherwood Forest and composed a ballad about a hooded outlaw who robbed from the rich to give to the poor. How could he know he was creating a legend? This book is dedicated to him, and to all the writers before and since who have made history an exciting and romantic visit in our imaginations. Marienne FitzWilliam had blossomed into a beautiful young woman. Because she had not taken any vow of seclu- sion, she was often sent to the market in Nottingham to trade the linens woven by the nuns of Kirklees. It happened one day, she was caught in a circle of sunlight, frowning in concentration over a selection of needles and spindles, when the bored and lecherous eyes of a town official came to settle on the abundance of glossy chestnut curls. His name was Reginald de Braose and he was in the service of the Sheriff of Nottingham, Guy de Gisbourne. An ugly man, short of height, overbulked in stature, de Braose's face was ravaged with the scars of a childhood disease. One eye was coated in a milky-white film, red-rimmed, and leaked fluids that more often than not were left to dry to a yellow crust in the corners. His hair, brown as dung, lay in greasy spikes against his neck and poked out from beneath the battered iron dome of his helm. His armor was not the finest. He wore no coif to protect his neck— not that any common man would be fool enough to attack him. His mail hauberk bore definite signs of combat and was ill repaired in the sleeves and hem; a sorry chain of broken links hung like a frayed iron thread down his thigh. The surcoat he wore was dull blue with more patches stained from food and drink than were clean. His hose bagged at the knee. The blade of his sword was pitted and chipped and betrayed no gleam, not even in the bright midday sun. He looked to the left and to the right, casually nodding to the half-dozen soldiers who lurked in the shadows. Only one was too preoccupied to nod back. He had a hand down the front of a blowsy wench and was too busy fondling and pinching to notice his captain's glare. De Braose and his men had been at the market since dawn. It was the fourth Saturday they had been up before the crowing of the rooster, turned out of warm beds with empty bellies and foul tempers; this day, like most others, they had positioned themselves at various vantage points in the market square watching for strangers, following them, hoping one might lead them to rich rewards. This was not the first time de Braose had seen the little dark-haired maid. She lived and worked for the nuns at Kirklees Abbey, but she was the most interesting morsel to come into view so far since the villagers had taken to hiding most of their wives and daughters—even the ugly ones— whenever there were soldiers around. Yeomen and peasants had started taking to the forests as well, especially those likely to be picked up by the soldiers and dragged off to the castle for work details. Overtaxed and half starving, they hid what little of value they had; it was up to the king's men to find it and pry it out of them by whatever methods they deemed necessary. Men forced to work in the castle could pay a fine and free themselves. Women forced to whore could pay a fine—after their use- fulness was fully exhausted—and return to their mud-and-wattle homes. Those who thought to struggle or resist found themselves missing ears or fingers, toes or tongues by way of example to others. It was the same everywhere in England. The king's treasury was empty and he demanded it be filled. Whether he had to steal taxes from the rich or bleed it from the poor, it mattered not so long as his stores of jewels and gold were replenished. In the eleven years since he had taken the throne, John Plantagenet had emptied the treasury many times over. He had lost the hereditary Angevin lands in Normandy and Brittany to his ineffectual leadership, and turned most of the English barons against him by using cruelty, repression, And murder as a means of ruling. Anyone who possessed anything of value found himself robbed of it, or fined for having it. The king's men scoured the land, inventing new tortures, confiscating properties, ravaging women, and more and more nobles were questioning their wisdom all those years ago in having supported John's claim to the throne when they might have had the young and malleable Arthur of Brittany. Their self-doubts only raised more rumbles of dissent. Where was Prince Arthur? What had happened to him? What had happened to his sister Eleanor? They were the offspring of John's older brother Geoffrey, and, by right of succession, Arthur should have inherited the throne upon King Richard's death. Instead, John had snatched the crown for himself and had thrown Arthur and his sister in prison. Neither had been seen since. There had been rumors and speculation, of course. A body had been found floating in the River Seine not six months after Arthur's disappearance. Badly decomposed, it could not be readily identified, but it had bright golden hair and the scraps of clothing it wore were of the finest, richest quality. Then and now there were murmured convictions that John had had his nephew murdered, even that he had committed the abhorrent crime himself in one of his fits of rage. As to the sister Eleanor, she had simply vanished off the face of the earth. There was one whispered tale of her con- finement in Corfe Castle, of a daring rescue staged by unknown knights, but the whispers faded when it came to the end of the tale. If she had been rescued, where had she been taken? Who could have possibly kept her hidden for so many years, and why, why, when England was embroiled in civil unrest, would she not have been brought forth out of obscurity to lay her rightful claim to the throne? The king was well aware of the resentment and hostility brewing around him. He had tried, and failed, to gather an army this past spring to cross the Channel and reclaim his lost territories in Normandy from King Philip of France. Less than a third of his barons had answered his call to arms, and to repay them for the insult, he had sent them home in disgrace and hired mercenaries in their stead at a great cost to England's treasury. Defeated by indifference before he began, he had suffered an abysmal loss in Flanders, at the Battle of Bouvines, and had once again been sent scurrying back to England, his tail firmly tucked between his legs. His rage was then focused on his barons, namely those who had refused to join the ill-fated venture. He was the king! All of his subjects—nobles, clergy, knights, and peasants alike—were at his mercy, and he was determined to prove it, even if it meant fining every noble, burning every castle in England, and placing their inhabitants in prison! To that end, he put vicious, brutal men in positions of power, giving them free rein to rape, steal, murder at whim. Guy de Gisbourne was one such tyrant who laid no claim to the possession of either a conscience or a willingness to show mercy. One of his first tasks, upon taking command of Nottingham Castle, had been to fill the donjons with men and women who owed a tax or were suspected of hoarding profits. His was a garrison of misfits and brutes, his authority was fire and sword, and few who defied him by word or deed lived to see another dawn. Those meager few swelled the ranks of the outlaws who had begun to live in the surrounding forests. Gisbourne had put high prices on their heads, and when they were caught, he had their bodies drawn and quartered, their various parts hung in the village square until the flesh turned black and fell off the bones. Only last week Reginald de Braose and his men had caught an outlaw trying to visit his blind sister in the village of Edwinstow. They had taken both the outlaw and the sister to the sheriffs court, where one had been sentenced to hang, the other to service the men of the garrison by way of an example to those relatives who might think to offer succor to their fugitive kinsmen. * * * Reginald de Braose watched the maid, Marienne, move away from the milliner's stall and signaled his men. She would not waste time returning to the abbey now that her linens were sold and her purchases made. Kirklees was a two-hour walk from the village, most of it through forest thick enough to tint the air green, dense enough to muffle the loudest screams from unyielding virgins. A friar was waiting at the edge of the village to escort her back to the abbey, but de Braose was not concerned; most of the graycloaks flew away like startled moths at the first glint of a sword blade. His men were another matter, for none of the soldiers in Nottingham liked to venture too deep into Sherwood. The trees seemed taller here, thicker, denser than anywhere else in England. It was said they were filled with ghostly sentries who whispered alarms and brought forth demons to slit the throats and spill the entrails of all those who came uninvited into the greenwood. De Braose did not believe in ghosts or demons. He believed the woods were filled with outlaws and misfits, and he believed strongly in the reward of a thousand marks Gisbourne was offering for the capture of their leader. No one had ever seen him without the trademark hood that concealed his features, nor, in truth, could they tell one outlaw from another, for they all moved like silent, shapeless shadows through the trees. They dressed in drab greens and browns to blend with the undergrowth, their soft leather jerkins and linsey woolsey making them seem to be appari- tions, moving from one glade to another like mist. The only warning of their presence was the faint hiss that came before their arrows struck. Still, it was a warm day and the thought of sinking himself into such a tender morsel as this dark-haired novitiate was too sweet to resist. He pushed away from the airless patch of shade that had harbored him, signaling his men to follow. "You seem distracted today, Friar," Marienne remarked as she adjusted the weight of the package under her arm. The monk turned and held her eyes a moment before responding with a self-conscious smile. "You were longer in the market than you should have been." "I had a difficult time finding everything on the abbess's list," she said, indicating the two bulky parcels he was carrying for her. "The sisters were short of many things— needles, spices, seed and such. And the tailor haggled longer than usual over the price he was willing to pay for the linens." "Everyone is suffering for the king's greed these days. Coins are scarce, generosity a thing of the past. Did you get the herbs you needed for Sister Bertal?" She nodded. "Thankfully, yes." He cast another veiled glance over his shoulder, and this time Marienne joined him in looking back at the tree-lined road. She could see nothing but the quiet stillness of the greenwood, the majesty of the tall oaks that stretched their leafy boughs high into the blue vault of the sky. So thick were the branches overhead that not much of the blue could be seen. Here and there, mottled patches allowed bright streamers of sunlight to slash through the latticework of branches and leaves, but by the time it reached the earth so far below, the light was diffused to a soft, blurry haze. And there were so many shades of green! The apple of young saplings, the emerald of ferns, the staunch vert of the firs, the varying jades, mosses, and olives of the towering oaks, ash, and yew. The air itself seemed shaded, lush with dew, shimmering like a jewel where the light touched upon it. So many feared the unearthly silence, the cool shadows, the pungent scent of isolation, but Marienne loved it. She loved the long walk to Nottingham from Kirklees, and she had hoped this day, like many others, her companion might be cajoled into veering off the road and taking her deeper into the living heart of Sherwood. One look at the worried frown on his face that morning had dispelled her hopes. He had tried his best to talk her out of going to Nottingham at all, claiming the sheriffs spies were everywhere, thick as fleas in an old man's beard. Any other time the abbess might have agreed with his prudence, but several of the sisters had broken out in a high fever and painful rash, and their limited supplies of medicine had run perilously low. The friar had capitulated, but not gracefully, for his feet had moved so quickly on the road Marienne's shorter strides had been hard pressed to keep his pace. She looked over at him and once more marveled to herself how unlike a friar he appeared. Over the past decade he had never once dropped his guard or taken any manner of precaution for granted. Nor had he allowed any of his knightly skills to wane. He was lean and hard, his limbs were like iron from living off the land. Where he might have missed the power of a destrier beneath him, he more than made up for the lack in sheer strength and stamina. He could run for miles without taking a heavy breath. He could and did practice for hours with sword, mace, and stave with hardly a trace of sweat on his brow to show for it. Like Marienne, he had taken no formal vows with the church, nor was he inclined to offer a prayer in lieu of a cut from his sword should his back come against a wall. He was one of the deadliest swordsmen in Sherwood and had his monk's robes specially fashioned to afford access to the weapon he always wore strapped to his waist. He had earned the familiar name Tuck because of the assortment of knives, daggers, and blades he kept hidden in various folds and pockets of his garments, and this was just as well, because his real name, should it ever slip from an unguarded tongue, would have brought the wrath of the crown down on all their heads. With the forest filling with outlaws, and those outlaws becoming bolder in their actions against the sheriff and his henchmen, it was becoming more difficult to remain anonymous. Luckily they all had secrets to keep, and the quickest way to earn a blade across the throat was to ask too many questions or offer up too much unwanted information. The outlaws of Sherwood were successful because no one man knew too much about another. Their leader insisted on keeping it that way, preferring to use nicknames rather than proper surnames, or names that identified them by skill, like Derwint the Fletcher or Edgar the Cobbler. They neither made nor passed judgment on any member of the band, and strangely enough, because loyalty and trust were not demanded, they were given freely and fiercely, even unto death. "Why do you keep looking over your shoulder?" Marienne asked, huffing a bit as they started up an incline. "Is there someone following us?" "I think there may be an excess of vermin in the woods today, aye. You will, of course, oblige me by running whither I send you if I deem their presence to become too annoying?" "I would sooner not have to run anywhere at all today." She sighed, then added shyly, "I would rather find a soft glade and a cool stream and practice the lessons you were teaching me." Haste had made the short hairs at her temple curl damply against her skin and put a rosy blush in her cheeks. She was at the far end of three and twenty but looked much younger, and her simple wool tunic could not completely conceal the ripe curves of the body beneath. On several occasions, Tuck had caught himself looking longer and harder than he should, most recently when he had taken the foolish notion into his head to teach her how to swim. It had happened all very innocently, for she had fallen off a cracked log and surprised him by panicking in water that was scarcely over her shoulders. He had taught her then and there how to make a few strokes and hold herself up by kicking and paddling, but the sheer act of supporting her wet and shapely body had left his own aching in ways that made him flush with hot guilt every time he thought of it. To repeat the exercise any time soon would have tested the fortitude of a real monk. Avoiding her gaze, he frowned over his shoulder again unable to rid himself of the feeling he should have beer more insistent that morning with the abbess. "I am as quick on my feet as you are, good friar," she said not knowing where his thoughts had drifted, but drawing his eyes back. "And if you have another sword tucked beneath your cassock, I will prove I can be just as good as ridding the forest of vermin." "I know full well your skill with blade and bow," he said grimly. "And those were lessons I should never have been extorted into teaching you." "They have come in handy on more than one occasion, she reminded him, "when you were not there to watch over the abbey like a tarnished archangel." Tuck's tawny hair caught a glint of sunlight and for moment resembled threads of pure gold. His skin was weathered a healthy bronze, and, not for the first time Marienne found herself smiling at the comparison. "You should never have strayed outside the abbey walls, he grumbled, "regardless how many of the sisters went with you, how sunny a day it was, or how ripe the berries were for picking. You were lucky it was just two errant knight looking to do a little mischief in the grass." "Well, they spent the rest of the day looking for the arrowheads I buried in their hides." Tuck started to give his head a rueful shake but froze when he detected a faint stirring in the sea of ferns that grew alongside the road. They had crested the hill an started on their way down and for the moment, the view of the road behind them was blocked from sight. His footsteps slowed measurably. Twenty feet ahead, the road took a sharp turn to the left the gully too thick with evergreens to see what lay beyond. It was, he realized at once, the perfect spot for an ambush, with blind spots ahead and behind. He was at further disadvantage, having a canvas-wrapped parcel cradled under each arm. As casually as he could, he transferred the one to free his sword arm. "Marienne—" The whisper barely left his lips when the impatient nicker of a horse justified the scratching on his neck. The unmistakable clank of armor followed close by, and with sudden certainty he knew they had been caught in a trap. He did not have to see the row of gleaming steel helmets that rose above the crest of underbrush, nor did he have to hear the muffled command and subsequent pounding of hoofbeats on the beaten earth ahead. A dozen or more horsemen had been waiting around the bend in the road, the same number of foot soldiers, armed with crossbows, had been secreted in the bushes waiting to cut off their escape. Even as he whirled around, dropping his packages to the road, the two lines of soldiers closed in behind them like a pincer. Marienne's hand went to her waist and found the hilt of the dagger she wore sheathed in her belt. Beside her, Tuck had his sword in his hand and was turning in a slow, shocked circle, his teeth bared over a steady stream of curses. The mounted knights drew to a halt behind the ring of foot soldiers. They wore plain gray tunics devoid of any crests or blazons. They carried no pennons, no shields embossed with identifiable markings. Their mail was made of the finest Damascene steel, polished to a professional gleam. The horses were huge, well fed, well blooded, and, to judge by the utter lack of movement, exceptionally well trained. They had the hardened look of mercenaries about them, and Tuck's grip tightened on his sword, raising the point to chest level, wondering if this was Gisbourne's work ... or the king's. Before he could divine any answer, one of them nudged his warhorse forward a few paces, his way of announcing himself as the leader. For all of two full minutes he said nothing. Dark, keen eyes glittered out from behind the steel nasal of his helm, giving Marienne but a cursory inspection before settling intently upon Tuck. "Of all the remarkable sights we have encountered of late"—his voice was a low, sinister rasp—"that of a monk wielding a fine Toledo blade must needs rank as one of the oddest." "Try your hand at taking it from me," Tuck said bluntly, "and you might rethink the ranking." "Boastful words, Friar," the knight hissed. "And ones that will likely require testing some time in the near future. For the moment, however, you might want to simply set the weapon aside instead." "Why would I want to do that?" "Because, as you can plainly see, I have twenty men with twenty fingers itchy to pull the trigger on twenty crossbows." Tuck's sword wavered not an inch. "Who the devil are you?" "Of more pressing interest, friend, is the question: Who the devil are you?" "Obviously not who you think I am." "You deny you are a member of the band of outlaws who populate the forests of Sherwood?" Tuck's jaw clenched. "I am but a humble mendicant going about God's business." The knight eyed the finely honed sword again. "Not so humble, I think, and judging by the number of robberies in these woods, not as much God's business as that of the King of Sherwood." "The sword was a gift. I carry it for defense against those selfsame robbers you accuse me of knowing." "That is good," the knight mused. "Very good." He leaned forward with a soft creak of leather and crossed his arm over the frontispiece of his saddle. "And if I believed you, Priest, it would be even better." "What would it take to convince you?" Tuck asked tautly. "More than you have to offer. Although if you persist in wasting my time"—the knight's eyes slid over to rest on Marienne—"we may be pressed to seek some form of compensation." Tuck delayed another fraction of a moment, then lowered the tip of his sword. The dark eyes returned. "Ahh. You concede the point." "Before I concede anything, I would call upon your honor as a knight to let the maid pass unharmed. She is but a simple child of God and carries medicines for the nuns at her convent." The knight weighed Tuck's words against the pale, stricken look on Marienne's face and agreed with a curt nod of his head. "Let her pass," he said to his men. "We can always find her again if we need her." Marienne, her skin the color of old wax, was conscious of Tuck drawing her down to retrieve the contents of one parcel that had split open. "Do not spare a single breath getting back to the abbey." His voice was raw with urgency, the words barely loud enough for her to understand. They came through bloodless, unmoving lips and frightened her more than any threat of rape or ravishment. "Lock and bar the gates. Let no one inside. No one, do you understand!" Her eyes were as wide and dark as those of a doe facing a hunter's arrow and Tuck knew what she was thinking. He was thinking it too. If they took him to Guy de Gisbourne and if the sheriff recognized his face ... He groaned and bowed his head. "If you do not hear from me in two days' time," he said tersely, wondering if he could even last that long under torture, "get word to Amboise. Tell them the Pearl may be in grave danger and needs their help." PART ONE Chateau d'Amboise Lady Brenna Wardieu raised her head ever so slowly lifting her two startlingly clear violet eyes and the tip of her nose barely above the lush sweep of ferns. Her hair was braided in a thick rope that hung almost to her waist Golden wisps had sprung free to surround her face in a soft halo of straggled curls, and she had lost her peaked felt cap somewhere in the chase, snagged by a low-lying branch as she had darted through the tangled underbrush. Her heart was still slamming against her ribs with the urgency of her flight, and she knew her adversary was out there some- where, camouflaged by the same sea of green that protected her. She sank back down into the cocoon of foliage that skirted the base of the oak tree. This part of the forest was dense, the shadows kinder to the prey than the hunter darkest in the gullies and culverts that offered sanctuary from searching eyes, yet each whisper of the leaves was sinister, each scratch of a squirrel's claw a potential threat. She had lost all sense of time and knew only that it must be growing late in the afternoon. There was already a fine layer of mist curling around the tree trunks, swirling filmy fingers into small pockets of open air. The branches were so tightly woven overhead the sky was only a distant impression of pale blue. Brenna could not even be certain of the direction she had been running, for she had concentrated on keeping her head down and her ears trained for sound of pursuit. She was not overly worried about getting lost She had grown up in these woods and would have had to run without a break for two days and two nights before entering unfamiliar tracts of forest. But she held no advantage there over her pursuer. He had been hunting deer and boar and hare in these vast tracts since he was a child. Moreover, because he hunted her now, his senses would be at their peak, his instincts honed for blood, his determination a rival only for her own. The ground underfoot was soft and loamy, scenting the air with the rich decay of several centuries' worth of fallen leaves. Her skin was damp and cool. She had been running almost steadily for over an hour trying to keep ahead, trying to keep from being caught out in the open. She would have liked to strip off the doeskin jerkin she wore, for it was holding the sweat next to her skin. Her shirt was plastered uncomfortably across her back and breasts despite the brisk nip in the autumn air. Her leggings and tall kidskin boots were crusted with mud where she had splashed through a stream—her toes still squeaked with water when she rubbed them together—and one knee was split where she had ripped it on a thorn. She fingered aside the torn edges of chamois and cursed at the deep scratch in her flesh. It had stopped bleeding but it still stung like the devil, and she struggled to calm her heartbeat, to think, as she flicked out the bits of dirt that clung to the drying blood. Somewhere very close-by a twig snapped. It was only a faint sound, easily attributed to a rodent burrowing in a rotted tree trunk ... if one did not imagine the silently mouthed curse that instantly followed. Brenna parted her lips, drawing breath as quietly as possible. The sound had come from behind her, and luckily, she had the bulk of the ancient oak to shield any soft ripple of movement she might make. Inch by inch she maneuvered her bow off her shoulder—not an easy feat to accomplish in a cramped position. The weapon was nearly five feet in length, made of seasoned yew, and could fire an arrow with enough power to pierce through chain mail and with such swift, deadly accuracy a graceful fwoosh was usually the last sound its victim heard. She plucked a slender ashwood arrow out of her quiver and, keeping her back against the tree, slid herself upward until she stood waist deep in the ferns. He was there, all right. The narrowest sliver of a violet eye peeked around the gnarled bark and marked the shock of bright red hair visible through the labyrinth of tangled saplings. Fool. It was the only splash of color in an otherwise green world, and he thought to trip her up on errors. The initial sound had seemed deceptively close, distorted by the almost liquid silence of the forest. In reality her quarry stood more than fifty yards away, frozen himself against his own clumsiness, his golden hawk's eyes search- ing the surrounding woods even as Brenna slowly ran her tongue along the arrow's fletching, dampening the vanes to ensure there were no gaps or breaks in the feathers. The shaft itself was three feet long, tipped with a twice- tempered iron head that could, at this distance, penetrate clothing, flesh, bone, and muscle from shoulder to shoulder and pin him fast to the tree. The shot had to be perfect. Precise. She would not have a second chance. Brenna nocked the arrow, blew out a final breath, then wasted no time in setting herself. She stepped out from behind the tree, her bow arm already raised and straight, her feet planted solidly apart for balance. She drew the fletching back to her cheek, took a split second to aim, then snapped her fingers away from the string and sped the shaft clean and true to the target. Habit sent her fingers to her quiver for another arrow, but she knew she did not need it. She knew from the yelp of surprise and the stunned look on William FitzAthelstan's handsome face as the bolt streaked past his nose, close enough for a lick of hot air to tickle his skin. The resounding f-f'bungg left the arrow buried nearly six inches in the wood and the shaft humming with lingering, resonant vibrations. "Christ Jesus God, and all the Saints!" He whirled in time to see Brenna give a small whoop of victory as she held up their scores on her fingers—two clean wins for her, only one for him. "You could have cut off my nose!" he shouted. "You should be more careful where you put it," she countered, wading through the ferns toward him. The smile was wide and fixed on her face. It was the first time she had outfoxed him two straight strikes in a row. His complexion stayed as red as his hair for the full minute it took for her to weave her way through the saplings to join him. The dark copper brows remained crushed together in a frown, the normally placid set to his mouth was distorted by a scowl. "Cheer up, Will'um," she said over a laugh. "We all have our bad days." He bent his head forward by a breath and tapped his forehead lightly on the shaft of the arrow. "Good shot, Bren. A damned good shot. All of them today have been damned good." "I know." She slung her bow over her shoulder and laughed again—it was difficult not to, seeing the abject look on Will's face. "And you, Sir Archer, are a far better sport than I would have been were our positions reversed. Ooooh ..." She reached out a slender finger and touched the end of his nose. "Is that a feather burn I see?" "You could have put out my eye if you had missed," he said sourly. "How could I miss such a fine, bold target?" "It has been known to happen." "Not since I grew breasts and improved my balance." He looked up from under his brows and could not help responding to her teasing smile. A moment later, he sighed and shouldered his bow. "I suppose we should start back. Dag and Richard likely gave the game up long ago, but Robin seemed in a particularly stubborn mood this day. Do you recall where we lost him?" Brenna shook her head as she glanced back at the deepening shadows. It was true her brothers Richard and Dagobert would have long ago lost interest in chasing elusive targets through the woods. No doubt they were back at the chateau quaffing mead and bickering over comely milk maids. Robin, on the other hand, could be anywhere. He had also tallied two hits this day, but not solely due to his own skill. He was a keen enough archer to be sure, but both Will and Brenna tended to cheat a little in his favor if he had gone too long without a win. He was far more comfort- able on the back of his enormous warhorse, Sir Tristan, leading a company of knights into battle. Only this past July he had, with his brothers and the men of Amboise, joined forces with Philip of France to offer the mercenary army of King John a crushing defeat at Roche-au-Moine. "Dearest Robin. On a battlefield or in a jousting run, he is undefeatable. Put him in lincoln green and fit a bow to his hand and ... well..." "Some men are suited to wear shining armor and do battle with demons and dragons. Others possess more human qualities, like a tendency to bleed, quake at the heels, and recognize their own limitations." "Then as long as he has you at his back, he has no need to fear such mortal failings," Brenna added with an affec- tionate smile. Will's face mirrored her wry expression, but she knew he was thinking the same thing. He had been squire to her father, Lord Randwulf de la Seyne Sur Mer, since the age of ten, but it was Robin with whom he had developed a close, fast friendship. At four and twenty, Robin was six years his senior, yet there were times the younger man's wisdom and patience far exceeded that of the passionate, impulsive heir to Amboise. In that much, it was said, they resembled their respective fathers, for Alaric FitzAthelstan had always been content to stand in the shadow of Lord Randwulf, letting the legendary Black Wolf establish himself as the champion and slayer of dragons while he himself sought only the position of friend, ally, and closest advisor. It was a role that suited Will as much as it suited Lord Alaric, for although he had trained as hard as any of the sons to earn his spurs and showed as much ability and courage to wade wholeheartedly into battle, his quick mind, instincts, and powers of perception had proved far more lethal. He was a brilliant strategist. He could look at a problem and see three solutions where others were left scratching their heads in search of one. Lord Randwulf had had no qualms sending him to Maine with the rest of the men from Amboise. It had been Will's-quiet advice and Robin's genuine respect for it that had, as much as the brazen courage of the thousand knights who fought under the pennons of the Black Wolf, won the day at Roche-au- Moines. With only eighteen years to his credit, however, he had not been among those knighted on the field by King Philip as a reward for their services. It had been a bitter disappointment, but as Brenna had been quick to point out upon his return to Amboise: "Your time will come. Even Robin was nineteen before the king took notice of him, though I am not sure he would not have ridden Sir Tristan straight into the royal bedchamber if all else had failed. Why are men in such a hurry to have their brains bashed out anyway?" "You would not understand." "Indeed, I admit that quite freely. I most certainly do not understand. Richard and Dag have no brains to speak of, therefore they would hardly feel the loss. But you—you have the best bow arm ... with one obvious exception of course ... in all of Normandy, Brittany, Poitou, and Touraine, yet you fever with eagerness to clamber up on a horse, burden yourself under a few hundredweight of armor, then hurl yourself down a course knowing there is a good likelihood of breaking every bone in your body." Will had scowled. "Your confidence in my ability is touching." "It is not my goal to encourage you. Nor is it my father's, I warrant. And before you puff up like a weed pod, I am not saying he is less than proud to bursting that you came this close"—she had pressed her thumb and forefinger together by way of emphasis—"to wearing your spurs home from Maine, but he has four sons who would sleep in their armor if they could find a way to do so without making eunuchs of themselves. What he needs and what they need is a cool, level head to guide them." "Now you think too much of my abilities." "Your modesty is commendable, truly it is. But who else in this or any other demesne within a ten-day ride can speak six languages fluently and quote great boring passages of Sophocles when it is least expected?" “‘It is not the powerful arm, but the soft enchanting tongue that governs all,' " he mused. "There. You see? Even he agrees and he has been dead for a few hundred years." Will had only laughed and shaken his head at her unaffected lack of reverence. Less than four months separated them in age and they were as close as they could possibly be without becoming intimate. She suspected both sets of parents had always harbored the secret hope that a lifetime spent in each other's company would naturally have progressed into something more. There was no denying Will was painless on the eyes. He was long-limbed and well muscled, handsome enough to draw second glances from women of all ages and situations. From his father he had inherited his scholarly mind and an easygoing nature that hid a devilish humor and deep sense of honor. From his mother, Lady Gillian, had come the shock of red hair and the gilt-colored eyes, the keen sight and rock-steady nerve that had made her one of the best and most feared archers in all of Christendom. To no one's surprise, Lady Gillian had fit a bow to his hand as soon as he could stand. Brenna, because she was always underfoot and could not bear to be left out of anything, had stood alongside him learning how to find her balance, to sight along the shaft of the arrow, to listen to what the bow string was saying if the fingers plucked too hard or too soft. Under Gil's expert tutelage they had become master archers in their own right with neither able to claim consistent superiority over the other. The game they had played today, they had been enjoying since they were children, and while they retraced their steps through the forest, it would be her pleasure to annoy him by verbally replaying each of the five winning shots, pointing out the errors made or the particular cleverness required to score the winning point. As far as seeking a deeper intimacy, she could not deny she had thought about it, wondered about it. The trouble was they had been so close for so many years, their affection for one another was more like that of a brother and sister. To make more of it would have felt like incest—something both had acknowledged long ago despite their parents' lingering hopes. All was not completely lost, however. Brenna's younger sister, Rhiannon, was only in her eleventh year, but just last month had presented their father with a petition, a contract of marriage for herself, drawn in her own hand with every word and phrase labored over as if it were going before the king to be made into law. In it she insisted Lord Randwulf and Lady Servanne recognize the immediate and pressing need to insure the future alliance of their noble house with that of FitzAthelstan. Since both Eleanor and Isobel had chosen to marry indiscreetly (meaning they had fallen in love with the landless brothers LaFer), and Brenna showed no inclination to marry whatsoever, she considered herself, Lady Rhiannon Wardieu d'Amboise, the last hope of salvation. Further to the point, she was the perfect match in temperament and passion for the more reticent William. Upon hearing it, the prospective groom had remained oddly silent on the matter. He had not laughed aloud when Brenna had told him of the petition, nor had he suffered any prolonged teasing with his usual display of good humor. If anything, he grew downright prickly whenever she broached the subject, and of late, she had even caught him flushing whenever his duties caused him to be in Rhiannon's company. From a sister's perspective, Brenna supposed she could not fault him for his taste. Rhiannon, like their two older sisters, shared their mother's white-blond hair, cornflower blue eyes, and complexion as pure as milk on snow. Their figures were slender and delicate, their hands unblemished by any labor more damaging than the weaving of threads in a tapestry. By contrast, Brenna had tough yellow calluses on the pads of her fingers and arms that were more like iron than velvet. Her complexion tended to be more in keeping with nature, lightly tanned with a spray of freckles across the bridge of her nose. Her hair was an equal blending of gold and brown threads, her eyes were a darker, more exotic shade of blue with hints of violet and flecks of indigo to suggest an underlying temper not precisely in keeping with the expected sweet compliance of someone groomed to be the chatelaine of some noble lord's household. In truth, she had tried to learn patience, she had even tried to learn embroidery once. That had been when Good-wife Biddy had still been alive and in charge of the nursery. Old Blister had known all of Brenna's hiding places and had not shown the least bit of hesitation in storming the male bastions of the castle to root out her charge and drag her back to the classroom. But Brenna had never stayed put for long. She loved her sisters and admired their maidenly skills, but she had preferred the company of her brothers as far back as she could remember. She would sneak off to join them in the tilting yards, buckling on a sword and challenging them in the practice fields despite the dangers and risks that could not be avoided regardless how careful or indulgent the boys might be. After a while, indulgence was a long-forgotten sentiment as she proved she could hold her own with dagger, mace, and sword. A further challenge from Dagobert had put her up on the back of a destrier for the first time when she was but ten years old, and in spite of the rigid social conventions forbidding a woman to ride, much less own, a blooded warhorse, she had so impressed and pleased her father, he had presented her with a stallion sired by his own great champion steed. As for her supposed indifference to marriage, it wasn't that she didn't want a husband. It was just that she had not yet met the man whose life and destiny she would willingly trade her freedom to share. She had never experienced the warm fuzziness her sisters trilled about constantly, nor had she felt the earth shift beneath her feet or the blood run cold and hot through her veins. And she certainly had never suffered the queasiness of a flock of butterflies let loose in her belly, as Eleanor had described it. Love, in fact, sounded like more of a malady than a happy circumstance anyway, and there were times she watched Isobel and Eleanor—even Rhiannon who circled poor Will like a bird of prey—and wondered at the nonsense of it all. A kiss was nothing more spectacular than a pressing together of lips. What a man and woman did together in bed sounded like an uncomfortable chore, looked like an ignoble thrashing of arms and legs, and inspired only vague feelings of disgust when she saw how slack-lipped, dull-eyed, and witless a man became in the throes of lust. Mercifully, neither of her parents were strong advocates of contracted marriages, and Lord Randwulf was certainly no ordinary father bent on using his daughters to make sound political unions. Kings already quailed at the sound of his name. Whole armies shrank at the sight of the black-and-gold. Troubadours as far north as Scotland, as far east as Jerusalem retold glorious chansons de geste boasting his accomplishments as Crusader, warrior, and sworn enemy