‘I’m keeping this for a start,’ the man said, fastening the sword belt about his waist. He ran his hands down Oliver’s body, ending at his feet.
Her blood turned to ice. ‘Thief! Leave him alone!’
‘Shut up!’ The man was scrabbling about at Oliver’s ankles, she couldn’t think what he was doing. ‘Eadric, get rid of the wench,’ he said. ‘Or I’ll still her tongue – permanently.’
The thief hunched over Oliver’s ankles. She saw the unmistakable flash of steel as he hacked at something with his dagger. What was he doing? Her eyes stung. ‘Don’t. Please, don’t.’
Oliver’s hair was soft and warm under her palm. It felt sticky. She glanced down. Saints, he was bleeding. Badly. Dizzy with horror, she shook her head to clear it.
Father Eadric’s hand fell heavy on her shoulder. ‘Why do you stay?’ he asked, softly. ‘I thought you were trying to escape him?’
Rosamund would never trust a soft voice again as long as she lived. She squared her shoulders, but the hand remained. ‘You keep strange company for a man of God, I doubt you’d understand.’
One of the men let out a bark of laughter and the priest joined in. ‘Why, I do believe you’re preaching, lass. Take care – for a woman who prefers bedding with a knight to bedding with her own husband you are on very uncertain ground.’
She clenched her fists, discovering with a flash of surprise that anger took the sting out of fear. ‘You mistake the matter, Father. And he is no knight. He is but a sq-’
The man at Oliver’s ankles let out a shout of triumph. He was brandishing a pair of golden spurs. She sagged with relief – he’d sliced through the straps fastening the spurs to Oliver’s boots. For a sickening moment she’d fancied him to be butchering an unconscious man.
Golden spurs?
Her jaw dropped as the significance of what she was seeing sank home. Two shining golden spurs, not ordinary spurs made in base metal, but gleaming gilded ones. They shone like gold, even in the moonlight. The spurs of a knight. She stared wide-eyed at the head beneath her hand, at the fan of dark eyelashes resting against the pale cheeks. Oliver had been knighted.
The priest grunted. ‘Good, they’re just what we need. Give them to Hamo. Hamo?’
A stocky figure stepped away from the bushes. ‘Father Eadric?’ He bowed, mockingly.
‘Enough of that,’ Father Eadric said, curtly. ‘You know what to do?’
‘Aye.’
‘Do it then. And remember, Hamo, this is no jest. You can ride?’
‘I’ve straddled a nag or two in my time.’
‘Our friend’s destrier is tethered at the crossing, take him. Do you think you can handle him?’
‘The horse hasn’t been born that I can’t handle – one way or the other.’
‘Good. Mark their numbers. And for God’s sake don’t do anything rash.’
The spurs flashed through the air, Hamo stowed them in his pouch, and headed downstream – back towards the stepping stones.
Father Eadric frowned at Oliver and tossed a length of rope at a hooded man. ‘Tie him up.’
‘Where are you taking him?’ Rosamund said. ‘What are you going to do with him?’
The priest caught her by the hair, pulling so hard her eyes watered. As she jerked to her feet, she snatched at Oliver’s pouch and twisted it onto her belt. She didn’t think Father Eadric had noticed, he was smiling at her, though his smile was anything but kind. ‘It would seem we owe you some thanks, girl, your lover is a knight.’
‘So it would seem.’ She still couldn’t believe it – in the short time since she’d last seen him, Oliver had been knighted. Not that these men were showing any respect for his rise in status – the one with the rope was trussing him up with a ruthless efficiency that reminded her of Baron Geoffrey’s huntsmen. She’d come across the tail end of a hunt once and she’d watched the huntsmen tie up a deer this way. Her stomach churned. What were they going to do to him?
‘It beggars belief that you should be truly worried about him,’ the priest said, thoughtfully wrapping her hair about his fist. ‘Especially since you were so recently wedded to...Alfwold wasn’t it?’
‘You know my husband’s name well enough.’
‘Let me give you a warning. Go back to the mill.’
‘No.’
The man who’d taken Oliver’s sword let out a crude laugh. ‘Let her stay, we could do with a woman to pass around with the ale.’
More laughter came from somewhere in the bushes. Her heart felt like lead. How many of them were there? What could she do against so many? Yet she couldn’t stand meekly by while they took Oliver. There must be something she could she do.