Unworthy! Elias silently rebuked as he leapt from cover of the boulders. Would a Wulfrith have spared a man’s life at the risk of others held far more dear?

Determinedly casting out the troubadour, Elias sounded three trills to bring Theo and his charges running had the soldier’s hue and cry not already done so, and watched for movement of those he was to deliver to the skiff as well as the men patrolling the docks.

Naught of the former, but as he entertained the possibility the soldier’s shout had not carried far, from out of the shadows coming straight for him were two robed figures who should be preceded by his squire.

Theo had fallen back, meaning his charges were pursued, likely by patrol they had slipped past ere the call to arms. As Elias ran forward, exchanging dagger for sword as he felt the giving of more seams, he identified two more robed figures. Behind them came Cynuit and Honore, the lad gripping the woman’s arm in an attempt to add his speed to hers. Unfortunately, his aid could see them both brought to ground.

With the sword-wielding Theo bringing up the rear, they numbered seven as they ought to, but moments later an eighth and ninth figure came into sight also armed with swords.

“Almighty!” Elias called on the Lord as he neared the front ranks of the brethren, the height of the one on the left identifying him as Brother Christian. But then that figure looked behind and swept around. Trained up in faith and hindered by a priestly frock the same as Honore in a gown, did he truly believe he could defend the woman and boy?

“To the boat, Brother Christian!” Elias shouted, and the holy man’s brethren added their voices to his, urging their fellow to resume his course. But the plan further unraveled when they also turned back to retrieve their leader and drag him toward their only hope of crossing the channel.

“I have not a sword, but I have fists!” Brother Christian shouted.

Elias ran past three of the brethren, snatched hold of the tallest one’s cowl, and yanked hard. He did not pause to confirm whether or not the man stayed his feet but shouted over his shoulder, “We have them! Get to the boat!” Moments later, he commanded Honore and Cynuit, “To the boat!”

He heard Honore call his name, then he was alongside Theo who spun around to face the soldiers coming hard and fast.

“Brace yourself!” Elias said what he hoped need not be spoken though this would be Theo’s first true test of whether he could save himself and others. Then choosing the largest, swiftest, and most heavily armored of the patrol, Elias lunged.

Their swords clashed. Had those at the docks remained oblivious of what transpired near the point, they were no longer. Though Elias could spare no glance in that direction, more of those who sought to prevent them from crossing the channel were coming.

Hearing the ring of his squire’s blade against his opponent’s, Elias sent up a prayer Theo would be spared a much-shortened life, then parried a swing meant to open his middle and countered with an upward stroke that caught the rim of the soldier’s helm and sent it flying.

“You are welcome,” Elias said. “Now you can see, your defeat should be less humiliating.”

The taunt was intentional. Were he to aid Theo, increasing the chance they reached the skiff before it sailed, he must make quick work of his opponent. And often the best way to accomplish that was to rend the man’s concentration by making the encounter overly personal.

The soldier cursed and surged forward. His blade struck Elias’s upper arm and skittered down tunic-covered mail. However, its point momentarily found blood in crossing the back of Elias’s left hand.

It would pain later, but now he felt little more than warmth slicking his fingers—and the need to be the one to next draw blood. Thunder in his ears, he knocked the man’s blade aside with a backhanded slice and a loud tearing of seams.

His opponent recovered, and his wildly swinging sword cleaved the air where Elias’s head would have been had he not ducked. That move and the one to follow had been taught him not by Everard but his friend, Durand, whilst they were yet wary acquaintances.

Elias came up directly in front of the soldier whose sword arm had yet to unwind from where it had completed its swing across his chest, rocked his head back, and slammed his brow into the man’s nose. For Elias, it was a relatively soft landing, sending tolerable pain through his skull, but not for his opponent who howled over a broken nose, lost his footing, and went down.

Elias delivered another blow to ensure he did not soon rise and glanced at the docks. Three of those who had patrolled it were absent. Certain they advanced amid shadows, he ran to assist Theo whose battle with a short but spry soldier had moved them toward moonlight come through a break in the clouds near the shore. But Elias’s aid was not needed, his squire bringing his sword down with such strength his opponent’s blade snapped. Then Theo delivered a kick to the chest that dropped the man to his back.

“To the boat!” Elias shouted.

The squire’s hesitation told he longed to ensure his foe did not regain his feet, but then he was running ahead of his lord. As Elias followed, above the sea’s song he heard the ring of mail, grunts, and curses of the dock patrol giving chase.

Reaching the point behind Theo, Elias saw the skiff had taken to the water, a half dozen oars on the right side rising and dipping. It was not so far off shore it could not be reached, but if the oarsmen applied themselves, soon the boat would be in water too deep to be negotiated beneath the weight of armor. And they would find themselves outfitted in chains of a different sort.

Theo requiring no prompting to continue forward, Elias drew breath with which to bellow the name of the tall Gilbertine lest those aboard could not determine whether the two pounding the surf-hardened shore were friend or foe.

“They come!” Honore’s cry shot from sea to sand. “Pray, turn back!”

“Brother Christian!” Elias shouted.

Once more the oars rose and fell, and not in a direction of benefit to the warriors who made it possible for six of their party to depart England. Because Elias and Theo were too closely pursued?

A glance behind told they were not—yet.

Did Brother Christian betray them? Or had the one captaining the skiff determined the risk was too great? Regardless, were Elias and Theo to be captured, the patrol would have to get wet to wreak vengeance on those who aided the brethren’s escape.

Raised voices ahead as Elias followed Theo into the tide, amongst them Brother Christian’s and Honore’s. Raised voices behind, unfamiliar and portending great ill.

“Sheathe your sword!” Elias called and thrust his own into its scabbard.

Theo complied, and as their pursuers neared, those ahead raised their oars and left them angled heavenward. They would not row back, but neither would they row away until given no choice.

Hoping the seabed gently inclined, providing purchase for their boots all the way to the boat, Elias and his squire forged onward.

They were less than twenty feet from salvation when the sand below fell away and they dropped, the water swirling about their hips suddenly at their throats.

Struggling to keep feet firm to the rock below as the sea wavered between pushing them back toward the patrol and pulling them into depths that could drown them ere they shed their mail—were it even possible encased in tunics—Elias beseeched the Lord to deliver them.

As did Honore, calling, “Your Grace, save them!”

“Row for them!” Brother Christian bellowed.

The oars dropped, and the skiff shot toward Elias and Theo. It took two strokes to bring the bow alongside the warriors and a sharp backward stroke to arrest its progress. With the patrol shouting as they leapt through the tide, Elias and Theo raised their arms and were gripped and hauled aboard.

Hardly were they loosed than the boat surged opposite.

As Elias sat up, Honore dropped to her knees beside him.

“Elias!” She threw her arms around his neck and clasped him close as if all her world had nearly gone wrong. And he supposed it might have. It being possible he was Hart’s father, he was her best hope of rescuing the boy.

He set a hand on her back. “All is well.”

Brow pressed to his shoulder, she jerked her head as if in agreement but did not release him.

Beside them, Theo rose and dropped onto a bench upon which sat the tallest of the brethren with his back to moonlight. There was little to glimpse beneath the hood he held closed at the neck to prevent the air stirred by the speed with which the oarsmen began their journey from dropping the covering down around his shoulders.

“We thank you, Brother Christian,” Elias said. “I know it was a great risk to return for us.”

In a voice less graveled than before, the man said, “As was the aid you gave me.” He sighed. “A greater risk on both sides than you yet know, my son.”

Those words sent a chill through Elias that had naught to do with soaked garments—words that portended his quest to find Hart would prove more dangerous.

Releasing Elias, Honore sat back on her heels. “I feared you lost to us.”

Wondering why he missed her embrace, he said, “Far from it.” He stood and reached to her.

As he pulled her upright, she exclaimed, “You bleed!”

As was becoming habit in her company. “A cut to the back of the hand that ought not require the needle.”

“Allow me—”

He pulled free. “My squire will tend it.”

She nodded and settled on a bench distant from Brother Christian.

Elias turned toward shore. The patrol there could only stare after their lost quarry as the skiff’s captain ordered his men to row faster.

Out to sea they swept. Out of reach of whoever did not wish a man on a low rung of the Church to carry tale to the pope.