Knight's Prize (8 page)

The maid
blushed
again,
though whether from shame
or anger, he
couldn't
tell. "Of course."

He shouldered
the
satchel
and
followed
Miriel to
the keep.

Pagan had given Rand
permission
to bed down with the other knights in the great hall, though after Rand's poor
display of swordsmanship, the disappointed lord would have likely preferred
that he sleep with the hounds. Now, admiring the gentle sway of Miriel's hips
as she walked across the courtyard before him, Rand wished he'd arranged to
share a pallet with the tantalizing damsel.

In
time, he promised himself. Though Miriel was definitely a woman of passion,
she was also a tease. She was the sort of wench to throw herself at him like a
wanton in one moment, only to plead her virginity the next.

When
he bedded her, 'twould be on her terms. And he
would
bed
her. There were few who could resist Rand when he put his charm to work. In
another day, maybe two, he thought with a lusty grin, he'd have Lady Miriel
wrinkling his sheets and cooing his name in the most dulcet tones.

Entering
the great hall of Rivenloch, Rand was impressed. Myriad bright banners and
silver shields graced the walls. Fresh rushes imparted a sweet scent to the
chamber, and tallow candles set in sconces gave the hall a warm, welcoming
glow. Servants scurried to and fro, tending to the fire on the hearth,
scrubbing soot from the plaster walls, carrying buckets and baskets and
bundles across the hall, climbing up the tower stairs, descending to the
storerooms below.

"Preparations
for the wedding feast," Miriel explained, as they passed a pair of maids
polishing the oak trestle tables with rags and a pot of beeswax.

Rand
nodded. The ceremony in two days might prove fortuitous indeed. What thief
could resist lightening the purses of departing wedding guests, who were likely
to be suffering from the groggy aftereffects of their merrymaking? If Rand
kept a close watch on the woods the morn after the feast, he was sure to catch
the robber.

"You
can keep your things here," Miriel told him, opening a large oak chest
along the wall that was filled with several similar satchels.

As
Rand dropped his belongings inside, a young lad approached and bobbed his head.
"My lady, the wine's arrived from the monastery, but Cook says it's
short."

"Short?
How short?"

The
lad screwed up his face, trying to remember. "Twoscore?"

Miriel
gasped. "Twoscore? Are you sure? 'Tis only half what I asked for."

"Aye,
twoscore short."

While
Miriel chewed at her lip, considering what to do, another servant came up, an
old woman with a face like a dried apple.

"That
God-cursed spice monger," she groused. "He's wantin' more coin for
his goods now."

Miriel
furrowed her brows. "Well,
he
can't
have
more
coin."

"That's
what I told him."

"And?"

"He
says it cost him more this time, on account of his ship was attacked by
miscreants."

"That's
not
my
concern."

The
wrinkled old woman shrugged, and Miriel clenched her teeth in frustration.

Then
a couple approached, a stout woman looking
smug as
she
hauled up a stick of a man who worried his doffed hat in his hands.

"'Go
ahead," the woman said, "tell the lady what ye've done."

"Beggin'
yer pardon, m'lady,"
he
said, "but one of the
hounds got loose and... and..."

The
woman crossed her arms over her generous chest. "Pissed all over the table
linens, he did."

"He
didn't mean to," the man argued. "Besides, what were they doin',
hangin' up on the bushes?"

"They
were airin', ye big dolt."

Miriel
held up her hand for silence, then turned to Rand. "I'm sorry."

"You
have your hands full."

"I'm
in charge of the castle accounts," she explained. "I'm likely to be
quite busy over the next two days with the wedding preparations."

"Anything
I can do to help?"

"Not
really. Unless you'd like to interrogate the hounds."

He
grinned at her dry wit. "'Tis such lovely weather, my love, I think I'll
take a stroll about the countryside, get to know your magnificent
Rivenloch." Taking a few things from his satchel, he nodded to the others,
excusing himself from their company, but not before hearing the stout woman
echo in wonder, "My love?"

Rand
smiled to himself. He couldn't believe his good fortune. Not only had he
managed to secure an excuse for being at Rivenloch, an excuse that was young
and desirable and lovely to look upon, but it seemed the lass was too
preoccupied to pay him much mind, which meant he had the freedom to track the
outlaw at his leisure.

He
wasted no time. Armed with his sword, a pair of daggers, and the shackles, and
taking along his silver in order to remove temptation from that overcurious
Miriel, he set out to explore the forest on foot.

The
woods of Rivenloch were beautiful in a fey, wild way. Moss covered the stones
and the trunks
of
the
sycamores
and cedars,
muffling the sounds of his footfalls
as he searched along
the
leafy path. Beside him, fern
fronds
bowed under the weight of
dragonflies, and over-bead, rust-colored squirrels leaped from branch to branch
with cheeks full of acorns. Toadstools clustered like bald-pated old men at the
foot of ancient oaks. The mist had all but vanished, and here and there, where
shafts of sunlight shot to the ground, a lizard or a mouse might pause in its
scurrying to soak up the precious warm rays.

'Twas
the kind of place one could imagine inhabited by all sorts of magical woodland
creatures—mischievous sprites and enchanted elves. Forsooth, Rand almost
believed, by the exaggerated accounts of the outlaw he sought, citing the man
as nigh invisible, as fast as lightning, as quiet as death, that The Shadow was
such a creature.

Rand
shook his head. 'Twas little wonder the lords continued to be terrorized by
the robber when they endowed him with such impossible talents and such an
ominous name. The Shadow indeed. No doubt he was a mere mortal of desperate
means who answered to Wat or Hob or some other humble appellation.

Thus
far, however, Rand had been unable to find even a
trace of
his
passing
in a few hours of hunting. No crumbs
or coney
carcasses lay discarded by
the path. None of the mos
s on the
rocks
was flattened by the weight
of a rob
ber's
arse.
No
scent
of smoke lingered on the air. No
branches had
been bent into a shelter. No
human dung lit
tered
the
leaves.
Naught existed to indicate anyone took refuge in the wood at all.

He
was examining a broken stick on the path when he felt that telltale prickling
on the back of his neck again, the prickling that told him he wasn't alone.

Carefully,
so as not to raise suspicion, he picked up a dead tree limb by the side of the
trail and began stripping off the side branches, humming as he did so. When he
was finished, he stabbed it into the ground a few times, testing its strength
for use as a walking stick. But all the while his senses were highly alert and
finely tuned, listening for the slightest breath of sound, looking for the merest
flicker of light.

Behind
him. He was certain the intruder was behind him.

Whistling
softly, he proceeded down the path at a jaunty pace, letting his purse dangle
and bounce from his belt, sending up a merry clank of coins sure to tempt any
robber.

He
knew the thief must be following him, though he was making too much noise
himself to hear any pursuit. Rounding a spot where the path curved and
disappeared momentarily, he let a piece of silver drop to the ground and moved
on, as if oblivious to his loss.

But
instead of continuing down the trail, he ducked behind a screen of bushes and
hefted up the walking stick, waiting to waylay the unwitting outlaw.

The
instant he saw the flash of blue cloth, he sprang forward. But to his horror,
the scoundrel he collided with was neither Wat nor Hob. 'Twas Lady Miriel.

What
happened next, he wasn't sure. In one moment, he was lunging toward her, trying
in vain to slow his momentum. In the next, he seemed propelled forward with
even greater force, past her and into the holly bushes opposite, as if the
walking stick had taken on a life of its own and catapulted him there.

"Oh!
Rand!"

After a a moment
of
stunned
disbelief, he managed to disentan
gle h
imself
from the shrubbery, wincing
as the
sharp
leaves
scraped his cheek. What the bloody hell had
just
happened?

Miriel
stood before him, her trembling hands clasped at her breast, all innocence, but
for the sliver of a silver coin visible between her fingers. "Are you all
right?"

Chapter
5

MIriel
didn't know why
she'd bent down to pick up that dropped coin.
Perchance 'twas simply instinct bred from long years of watching every farthing
of the household accounts. But now she suspected it had been a trap. Rand,
sensing someone was following him, had
j
dropped
the coin intentionally, meaning to waylay who
ever
retrieved it.
j

The
fool was fortunate he'd lost no more than his balance. Startling her like
that, he might have suffered far worse than just a few holly scratches. If she
hadn't caught herself at the last instant, she might have broken his arm
 
or sent him into temporary oblivion with a
sharp blow to the chin.

Not
that he didn't deserve it. Her instincts had proved correct. The varlet
was
up
to something.

She'd
been following him for a while now. Solving the troubles at the castle hadn't
taken long. She'd sent a lad to another monastery for more wine. She'd employed
tears to convince the spice merchant to lower his price. And she'd suggested
the master of the kennel launder the linens himself.

Then
she'd
crept out to spy upon Sir Rand. Sure enough, he was searching the forest with
all the thoroughness of a hunter tracking boar.

What
the Devil was he after?

"Rand?"
she asked in feigned concern.

"I'm
fine." His brow creased in perplexity. "Are you?"

She
nodded.

"What...?"
he wondered, scrutinizing the trail to see what he'd fallen over.

"The
ground is very slick," she improvised. "Between the moss and the mud,
'tis a wonder one can walk at all."

"Hm."
He used the walking stick to lever himself to his feet, then cast it aside,
shaking his head hard to clear it of cobwebs and restore his decorum.
"What are you doing here, my lady?"