Never had she seen a dagger as mean as the one Finwyn drew, its blade long and curved. Fearing it was meant for her, she thrust to her feet.

“I would not!” he shouted. “My throwing arm is better than my bow arm.”

The moment she saw him she ought to have fled. Now, as he had traversed much of the distance, it was unlikely his throw would miss even were his boast without merit.

Near where De Morville had earlier halted, he did the same. Despite moonlight at his back, she saw the grin favoring one side of his mouth. “’Tis a pity it must be this way, Honore of Bairnwood, but you give me no choice.”

Her tongue clicked off her palate, and in like English she demanded, “What say you?”

“You think to ruin my business. Unfortunately for De Morville, he set my plan in motion earlier than intended. Fortunately for me, his interference shall make the tale of the unholy one who steals babes all the more believable when ’tis discovered she and her kind murdered a nobleman who sought to claim his misbegotten son.”

Honore shifted her gaze to the fallen knight, searched for proof of breath, but detected no movement beyond that of the milling mist. Were he no longer of this world, was it due to a cracked skull?

Guilt gripped her. Had she not wrenched free, she would have struck the roots and the knight would be putting an end to Finwyn.

“If he is not yet dead, he shall be,” the murderer said, and her insides churned more forcefully knowing their thoughts were traveling companions. “As for you, I am thinking after your man shot Sir Elias, I rushed to the knight’s defense and you and I struggled over the dagger you took from him. I gained it, but not before you cut out your tongue—with aid from me, though those who have begun to question the fate of undesirables need not know that.”

She stared. Though what he told was horribly fantastic, it must be the truth, the same as the rumor about joined twins which made some question if Finwyn did leave babes to the wood or further profit from them. Thus, another must be blamed, not he who would claim that after he did as paid to do, a witch stole the little ones.

He raised his eyebrows. “A good tale, eh?”

“Hardly believable,” she hissed. “Why would I cut out my own tongue?”

“So you could not be made to reveal the devil’s schemes.”

Those schemes being Finwyn’s, she thought, hopelessness moving through her.

He whistled low. “You will burn all the brighter for that. And when ’tis seen what you hide ’neath your covering…”

Beginning to tremble, she tried to convince herself this was not happening, that it was imagination terrorizing her until the bells of morn or a fitful foundling awakened her.

Keeping his dagger pointed at her, Finwyn stepped alongside De Morville, further stirring the mist in which the knight was partially shrouded. “There is the second half of what is due me.” He toed something, and she heard the jangle of coins. “He paid far better than expected for an introduction to one who might lead him to his son.”

Stalked by the horror of witnessing the evil worked on the knight and the creep of apathy telling her she could do naught to prevent the same from befalling her, Honore reminded herself how much she was needed by those in her care and those to come. “Do not do this, Finwyn. You know it is wrong.”

“You forced me to it.”

She opened empty hands. “I near the end of my coin. By next summer I would have no more to give.”

He scoffed. “Bairnwood is rich. More coin can be had.”

“Perhaps, but of greater import is saving those whose parents cannot afford to pay to set out unwanted babes and do so themselves. Once they can leave them at the abbey, none need know they have abandoned a child and their hearts will be less weighted by desperation that otherwise condemns their babes to death.”

“But those who can pay no longer shall, will they? And have you not considered that do you not pain their purses, they have no reason to be more cautious in breeding undesirables?”

Honore nearly choked. He thought only of the coin to be had from others’ suffering.

“In the cradle.” He jerked his chin at the depression amidst the roots.

She nearly asked the reason, but he had given one. There he meant to remove her tongue. “With or without me, the abbey will receive foundlings,” she said.

“I think not. Though the sisters may continue your work for a time, they did not commit their lives to the Lord to tend needy children. Nay, they are happiest on their knees glorying in the great peace promised them, and that is where they shall return.”

“You are wrong.”

“We shall see.” He drew his arm back as if to send the dagger flying. “Get in.”

“Consider your grandsire, Finwyn. What would he say?”

“What he cannot. ’Tis good he is dead, hmm?”

That hurt. Though he had earned his living in a heinous manner ere the bargain struck with her, she had seen enough good in the old man to become fond of him.

His grandson sighed. “Ever I rued disappointing him, especially when he had drink in him. You know he beat me, aye?”

She did. He had owned to it years past, asking her to seek the abbess’s prayers for the defiant and unruly boy whom he feared would become a deceptive and violent man. His wife’s fault, he had claimed. Ever the boy’s grandmother was soft on him. After her passing, it had fallen to her husband to take Finwyn in hand—and that old Arblette had done. But when he came to the end of his patience, he resorted to slaps and punches to control the boy’s wayward leanings.

“But we have no time for the past,” Finwyn said. “Though I expected I would have to put through the squire ere doing the same to his lord—and a great risk that would be had he cried out—it was a boon he chased your man who is not a man.”

Honore caught her breath. How did he know of Jeannette?

Before she could ask, he continued, “Providing the squire does not soon return, and does so without your long-legged Jean, he shall make a good witness to your murder of his lord. As for who shot the arrow that killed this unfortunate warrior, it seems reasonable a third witch got away whilst I fought you for the dagger.”

Honore’s head lightened with imaginings she stood before the devil.

“Now get in the cradle.” He jerked the hand alongside his ear, once more threatening to throw the dagger.

As if she ought to fear it over that other death planned for her, she mused. But a moment later, something leapt in her—something akin to humor, though of a sort she hardly knew. Not unlike that with which she was acquainted, it roused bitter laughter.

“What?” Finwyn demanded.

She pushed a hand back through her hair, causing veil and gorget to slide down around her shoulders. Not planned, and the loss made her catch her breath, but she laughed again. She had naught to hide from this miscreant who already knew her affliction. And of further benefit, the more unsettled he was, the more likely his aim would suffer.

Wondering if moonlight made her more unsightly, she raised her chin higher, causing him to wince. “You think one who is to lose her tongue, be lashed to a stake, and set afire fears the quick death of a dagger? As your grandsire bemoaned, you are too boastful of past and future successes that oft fail.”

Certain it was hurt slackening his face, she felt a stab of guilt over wielding such against him, but the grandson old Arblette had prayed would not become a deceptive and violent man stood before her. And was more to be feared than ever imagined.

Baring his teeth, he jabbed his dagger toward the cradle. “Move!”

With his blade no longer ready to fly, she nearly took the opportunity to flee, but what she glimpsed when she looked where he indicated presented another opportunity.

A flash of red and silver alongside the bundle on the left revealed De Morville’s dagger had landed there. She did not know if it was a better opportunity, but the blade was a means of defense, and though she doubted she could turn it on another person, the threat of doing so would give the squire time in which to return before her tongue could no longer defend her.

No stretch to appear defeated, she slumped her shoulders as she picked her way among the roots. She walked wide around Finwyn, then drew so near the knight her gown brushed his shoulder. Once past him, she hitched up her skirts and stepped into the cradle.

“On your knees,” Finwyn ordered.

All the better, she thought as she lowered before the bundles and ran her hands over the lures.

Finwyn chuckled. “The babes are not real, fool!”

But the dagger she had earlier pulled from the knight’s scabbard was, its iron hilt cold in her grasp. Slowly drawing it across the cradle’s floor under cover of mist and straw-stuffed bundles, she sat back on her heels.

“We shall make quick work of this,” Finwyn said, having turned alongside the knight to face her, “but first…” He bent and swept his dagger low.

She nearly cried out for fear he meant to cut the knight’s throat to ensure his death, but a heartbeat later, he held the purse cut from De Morville’s belt.

As ever, boastful, Honore reflected as he thrust the stolen coin inside his tunic.

“Now for that tongue of yours.” He began to move around the cradle’s rim to where she sat with her back against it. She did not know why she had not guessed he would come at her from behind, but her expectation she could hold him off by brandishing the dagger was for naught.

Panic tightening her throat, she struggled against the impulse to spring from the cradle, which would likely see her stuck.

But what else to do? she silently demanded of Honore of no surname.

When Finwyn’s hand was in her hair, fear-driven instinct provided an answer. As his blade came around the side of her face, she used the knight’s dagger to part her mantle and swept it upward. The ring of metal on metal told the two daggers met, and the sting above her ear that she had not entirely escaped a keen edge. Then a clatter sounded that made her fear she had once more lost the knight’s dagger, but her hand remained upon it.

Realizing the sound was Finwyn’s blade, she surged forward. Though her scalp protested the strain on her hair, she wrenched free. With his hands scrabbling at her back and shoulders, she sprang from the cradle and, ignoring the ache of a bruised hip, clambered over the roots.

Finwyn’s curses resounded around the wood, and more loudly when she reached less treacherous ground. Now she had only to outdistance him.

Or so she thought until halfway between cradle and rise something pierced the air alongside her. Certain it was an arrow, she continued to run toward moonlight. A fool thing for the target it made of her, but this way was Bairnwood—and De Morville’s squire who could prove an ally if she could reach him first.

Pain. Above his eyes.

Throbbing. At his shoulder.

Voices. Scornful. Threatening. Angry.

A woman’s laughter. Triumphant. And yet not.

A lightening about his waist. The loss of his purse.

A clatter. Metal on wood.

Snarling and cursing. Finwyn Arblette.

As Elias struggled to regain senses so staggered he felt as if he had imbibed much, he suppressed the impulse to thrust upright by dragging forth a lesson taught by Sir Everard. He could not think where it numbered among those learned to gain a coveted Wulfrith dagger, but its import was not forgotten.

Should you find yourself beneath your enemy’s boot, let not pride tempt you to show your hand ere reason and strategy are given their due.

In this moment of increasing clarity, both urged him to remain still whilst his vulnerable back was exposed to the one who had landed him among tree roots. And that was surely Arblette.

The huff of a loosed arrow made him tense. Was that what had knocked him into the woman? It was. He had heard it before his head struck the root.

More curses. Then boots scrambling, accompanied by the jangle of coin.

Tensing in readiness to gain his feet, Elias silently commanded, Hold!

With his left eye unhindered by the obstruction to which his right was blinded, that side of his forehead intimate with the humped root, he peered through the mist at the ground and listened.

The footsteps grew distant, and no matter how hard he strained, he heard no movement or drawing of breath to indicate any remained near.

Slowly, he raised his head. Grinding his teeth against pain shooting to the back of his skull and down his spine, he turned in the direction of those who left him for dead.

He glimpsed a figure wearing a gown before she disappeared over the rise but gained an eyeful of the one who followed with bow in hand.

Elias sat up. Blinking against blood trickling in his right eye, he dragged the back of a hand across it and assessed his surroundings. He was alone but would be keeping company with Arblette and Honore soon.

It was difficult to stand, his head reeling and shoulder aching.

That last a reminder of what had knocked his feet out from under him, he reached around and found the shaft stuck through his mantle. He pulled it free, not from flesh but material and the links of chain mail that had not failed, though they might have at the close range with which the arrow was loosed had he not swung to the side when the woman turned his dagger on him. Regardless, all he must suffer beyond questioning if he was worthy of a Wulfrith dagger was an aching head and shoulder.

He turned to negotiate the roots, then continued toward the mounts his squire and he had brought to the wood.

It was slow going, his stride uncertain and vision partially obscured by blood he wiped away several times, but at last he was atop his destrier. He took the reins of Theo’s mount, guided both horses out of the trees, then becoming predator to the one who had made him prey, put heels to his destrier.