Chapter 14
Angelet was very willing to let Rafe make all the decisions as to where to go and what speed to take and when to rest. She was numb from the events of the morning. Several times she almost convinced herself that it was a dream, and that she wasn’t alone in the woods with only a single knight for company. She’d wake up to find the whole group alive and well.
But then she’d feel the twinges of pain in her body from the splinters that struck her after the crossbow bolt hit the carriage. She grew conscious of the growing ache in her muscles from riding the white horse. She wasn’t used to riding for hours.
Rafe was used to it, of course, but he seemed distant, rarely speaking, and frequently circling back to look behind them. He did that again, apparently saw nothing, but didn’t seem relieved in the slightest. “Damn,” he muttered.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
“You look as if you want to kill.”
“I’ve been thinking.” He sighed. “Back there…I was careless. I should have been paying attention to the road, and I wasn’t.”
“A man can’t be on alert all the time,” she said.
“I can,” said Rafe, his tone much angrier than usual. “I’m not some boy who’s never been out in the world before. I’m a soldier. My task was to get the whole cortège safely from Dryton to Basingwerke, but I was too distracted to keep my mind on my work. And now people are dead because of it.”
“Rafe, there were more than twenty of them! Even if you had eyes in the back of your head and never slept, you couldn’t have fought them all off. Anyway, all the men-at-arms were supposed to be watchful too. Everyone was surprised. Whatever happened was no one’s fault but those who came at us.”
“Still, I should have…”
“If anything, this is my fault,” Angelet interjected.
“Don’t,” he said. “It was the fault of the thieves on our trail. They were willing to kill for what they thought we had.”
“Rafe,” she asked then, “the chest was truly empty?”
He took a breath. Clearly, that had been on his mind too. “Not empty, but there were stones where there should have been coin. The weight was meant to reassure us, make us think nothing was amiss.”
“But when could that have happened? The chest contained gold when we left Dryton. Otto showed us all! It was locked and chained and guarded every moment since. What happened?”
“I don’t know, Angelet. Believe me, I’ve been thinking of it. I don’t know how or when it was done. Or why, come to that.”
“The why is simple enough. A thief, but one who worked by stealth instead of force.”
“Perhaps,” he agreed. “A clever thief, too, to get into the chest to replace the coin with stones, and get away without any alarm. It defies imagination.”
“Could it have been two people? Or more? What if Dobson wasn’t working alone?”
“I wish I knew.” He swiped his hand across his face.
Angelet knew he was tired, but he’d never admit it to her. Men never liked women to know that they were mortal. Even when her husband had been in the last stage of his illness, when he couldn’t rise from his bed, he insisted he needed no help.
“We could pause for a while,” she suggested tentatively.
“Why?” he asked, suddenly fixing her with a sharp, searching look. “Are you not feeling well?”
“I’m quite all right,” she said. “But I’m not the one who was in a fight this morning.”
Rafe shook his head. “That was barely a fight. It’s been too long since I’ve fought for real. Those show fights at the tourneys aren’t the same.”
“But participants die in those.”
“Sometimes. But trust me, the experience is entirely different in an actual battle. I’m just a little out of sorts. I’m perfectly capable of defending you along the road.”
“I wasn’t implying otherwise.”
“Good. Because I want it known that I am still the best knight in the whole country.”
Despite everything that had happened, she laughed. “Did you mean to say the most arrogant?”
“That too. I excel in many fields.”
“Well, I hope one of them includes orienteering. I’ve no idea how long it is to the next town, or if we’ll have to sleep in the forest again. This time without tents or any comforts.”
“I’ll keep you comfortable if it comes to that,” he said. “But with luck, we’ll reach some sort of lodging by nightfall. The longer we ride, the better chance we’ll be able to pass a whole night before anyone catches up.”
Just after dark, they reached a village called Wynlow. The inn was easy to find, being the largest and loudest place along the road. Rafe told her to keep her hood up and to wait outside near the horses while he arranged everything with the innkeeper.
A short while later, Angelet walked into the private room they rented, and was very aware when Rafe followed her in. He closed the door behind him, but didn’t step toward her.
She made her way to the brazier, soaking up the heat from the embers while Rafe stalked around the whole room, staring suspiciously at everything.
Finally, he joined her, kneeling down to look directly into the flames.
“You’re not going to prod the chimney with your sword?” she asked. “I doubt there’s an assassin lurking there, but it’s possible.”
He shook his head, evidently too tired for jokes now. “The room is safe enough. No one can get in that window without making a lot of noise, and there’s no other door but the one to the corridor.”
“It doesn’t have a lock,” she pointed out, feeling a bit nervous.
“I’m the lock,” Rafe said simply.
“What do you mean? You can’t stand watch all night.”
“No, I can’t. But I can sleep in front of the door. No one can open it without waking me.”
“Oh.” Angelet looked everywhere but him. “You intend to sleep in here?”
“It’s the best way to keep you safe,” he said.
“From everyone but you.”
“Angelet, if I come to your bed, it will be because you ask me to and for no other reason.” Rafe stood up then, and she mirrored his movement. “Do you believe me?”
“I…do. And I’m not asking,” she added hastily.
“Just as well that I’m needed as a bulwark then,” he said with a wry smile. “You’ll have to make do with dreaming about me.”
“I do not dream about you!” she said, a statement that was not entirely true. She had daydreamed about him, and specifically what it would be like to spend a night, or two, with him. She missed being touched, being held. Before Rafe came into her life, she’d been able to more or less deny the urge. But ever since he first smiled at her, she recalled just how lonely she’d been over the past several years.
“What a shame. You should try…it would be an improvement over your usual visions of heaven.”
“You’re insufferable,” Angelet said, and turned back toward the bed. She pulled off a pillow and a woolen blanket, pushing them into Rafe’s arms. “Here, these are for you. How can you sleep on a hard floor?”
“Wouldn’t be the first time. I’ll manage.” He looked her over. “Now, my lady, you should go to bed yourself. You’ve had a long day, and you need rest.”
Angelet washed her face in the basin provided, and carefully removed her overskirt, feeling as shy as if she were taking all her clothing off, even though she still wore a shift. But Rafe didn’t seem to be paying attention, for he was at the brazier once again, adding fuel to keep the room warm through the night.
She lay down and pulled the remaining blanket up. A wave of fatigue rolled over her, and she heaved a sigh she didn’t know she was holding in.
Rafe let out a low laugh. “So you are tired.”
“Exhausted,” she admitted. She curled up on her side. “I’ll never learn how to live like this, traveling for miles day after day.”
“You shouldn’t have to deal with it for very long, my lady. I’ll get you to a safe location…once we decide where the danger is coming from.”
She lay awake for a while, the darkness only broken by the dull glow from the embers. Rafe was little more than a dark shape by the door.
“Rafe?”
“Yes?” He didn’t sound nearly as tired as she was, but he must be yearning for sleep.
“I just thought of something. We could shove the whole bed in front of the door. Then no one could open it.”
“True. But then you would also have no escape if there was a fire…or if I turned out to be an untrustworthy rogue and murderer. You need to have a path of retreat.”
She asked, “Do you always think of things in that way, as if it’s a war?”
“When people are trying to kill me, yes.”
“And here I’d have trapped us both.”
“It’s not your duty to think of those things, Angelet. That’s why I’m around. I’ll plan the attacks and the escapes and the marches.”
“What do I do?” she asked.
“You stay alive.”
She murmured some reply, feeling sleepier by the moment. Rafe’s words circled through her mind. You stay alive. Good advice in the circumstances, she supposed. But it wasn’t enough. A person needed something beyond simply staying alive. She needed a hope, or something to dream about. She was just about to ask Rafe what he hoped for, but then sleep took her and she drifted off, the question stuck on her lips.
When morning came, she sat up in bed, feeling infinitely better and more charitable toward the world. She saw Rafe lying across the bottom of the doorway, dozing in the pale dawn light. He was stretched on his side, looking quite peaceful. His unsheathed sword lay a foot or so away from him, the length of it paralleling his own body. For all his joking, he was serious about guarding her from threats. Angelet felt reassured, though she hoped they never again encountered the thieves from the day before.
She slipped out of bed and padded to him. She bent over and reached out to shake his shoulder. “Rafe?”
As she did so, her hair tumbled down, the loose braid falling till the ends hit his cheek.
Rafe caught the braid in one hand, looping the end around his palm once, twice. His eyes were still closed, but he was smiling. He brought his hand to his mouth and kissed the braid around his hand before letting it go. “Definitely a good way to be roused in the morning.”
“You’re still dreaming,” she retorted, straightening up again.
He chuckled, and sat up on his blanket. “A whole night alone with me, and you’re not even a bit ravished,” he said cheerfully. “Disappointed?”
A tiny part of her was, actually, but she just sniffed, pretending to be annoyed. “Certainly not!”
He wasn’t fooled, to judge by how he laughed at her tone.
“Well, I am,” Rafe said. Then his demeanor became serious. “We’d best get moving. Who knows if someone chose to keep pursuing you, but the further away we get from the path we were on, the better off you’ll be.”
“Would they assume we’d continue on to the abbey?”
“That’s the logical guess, based on what everyone has heard. Certainly, no one would expect us to be here. Chance brought us to this place.”
She nodded. “Then let’s move on. Let chance help us stay hidden, for now.”
They had so few supplies that packing up was easy. They made their way out of the room and toward the ground floor.
Just at the top of the stairs, the hem of her dress got caught under her shoe and she stumbled. She flung one arm out to the wall to get her balance, but that same moment, Rafe’s arm circled her waist and held her firmly on her feet.
“Are you all right?” he asked, his eyes scanning her anxiously.
“Yes. I just tripped. My dress got snagged by something.”
They both looked down and there indeed were a few long threads of her gown, caught by a splinter in the floorboard. Rafe relaxed, loosening his hold a little.
“I worried you might be having another fit.”
She shook her head. “No. The symptoms of that are entirely different. You’ve seen them.”
“By the time I found you, you were already unconscious,” he pointed out. “So I don’t know how it looks when it begins.”
“Well, I’m not suffering from another fit,” she said, hoping to reassure him. “Just a rough floor.”
Angelet became conscious of just how close they were, and remembered the way he’d kissed her the evening they’d been out during the moonrise. Just how terrible a person would she be if she wanted a little more of that closeness? “Rafe…”
“Yes?” The way he was looking at her suggested he might be thinking along the same lines.
I accept your offer. Angelet took a breath. No, she couldn’t say that. “You can…you can let me go now.”
He released her. “You’ll tell me if you ever start feeling unwell.”
“Of course.”
Rafe stepped around her and offered his hand.
“I can walk down a flight of stairs myself,” she said. “I’ve done it for years.”
“I believe you.” Still he didn’t budge.
Finally Angelet put her hand in his. “If you insist.”
“I do insist, my lady.”
She allowed Rafe to escort her all the way from the second floor, rather enjoying the attention. She’d been so used to being ignored at Dryton, where she was expected to fend for herself.
The innkeeper’s wife gave them bread and cheese, and even some sausage. Angelet smiled when she smelled the loaf, still steaming from where it had been resting in a warming oven.
“We should eat now,” she told Rafe. “It’s a shame to let this get cold.”
He glanced at the door, obviously tense. “No more than a quarter hour,” he said. His nose twitched a little. Even he was susceptible to the aroma.
It took less than ten minutes to devour all they had in front of them. Rafe paid for another two loaves before they left. Angelet also saw him mutter a few words to the innkeeper’s wife as he offered her a coin. The woman nodded vehemently.
“What did you tell her?” Angelet asked, once they stepped outside.
“I suggested that she forget what we looked like, should anyone come asking.”
“Will that work? She’d probably make just as much profit again to remember.”
He shrugged. “Hard to say. Some people only need a little aid for their sympathy. Either way, I can afford it.”
“Can you? How much money have you got? We hardly got anything away from the cortège.”
“I always keep my money on me,” he said. “And I have some supplies in Philon’s saddlebags. A lesson learned long ago. And as for how much I’ve got, Lord Otto paid well to see you safely to your destination.”
“Speaking of which, what is our destination now? I don’t even know where we are!”
“Nor do I, exactly. Somewhere south of Glossopdale, evidently. But the innkeeper’s wife said we’re already on the best road in this part of the shire. I think we can follow it till we reach a town of decent size. Then we’ll decide.”
He helped her onto the white horse. Not for the first time, Angelet considered the puzzle of Rafe’s personality. He was such an odd combination, deferential yet arrogant. He claimed he was only out for himself, yet he noticed the instant she showed any sign of distress and was ready to help her.
They followed the road, which ran roughly southwest, though with many twists and turns due to the increasingly hilly landscape. They rode in silence, each intent on their own thoughts. For her part, Angelet couldn’t stop thinking of how someone had spirited away a lifetime’s worth of precious coin with no one the wiser.
“Here’s an idea,” Angelet said suddenly. “Someone drilled into the chest from the bottom, and got the gold out that way. You didn’t notice a hole in the chest because it all happened in the middle of a fight, but it’s possible.”
He shook his head. “Even if someone had the tools for that—an awl? A saw?—he would have made too much noise. One of us would have seen or heard something. There was a man to guard it at all hours.” From how quickly Rafe responded, she realized his mind had been on exactly the same subject.
“But what…” she started to say.
“What?”
“What if one of the other guards was an accomplice? Or was promised payment to keep his mouth shut?”
“If it was a guard,” he asked, “who? Who would you suspect?”
“Not Simon!” she said instantly. “Nor Laurence or Marcus.”
“So quick to absolve.”
“I just know you and your friends wouldn’t have done this.”
He smiled at her confidence. “Thank you. But that puts the blame on Otto’s very own men. Does that make sense?”
“Gold makes men strange,” Angelet said. “Still, I don’t know which of them might have been the culprit, or how they might have done it.”
“I was trying to remember all the shifts the men took. On the second night, Dobson and Tad also shared a watch. Perhaps they did steal it then, and hid the gold somewhere nearby.”
“But why keep traveling with us?”
“To allay suspicion, or to simply get further from the gold, so that no one else could chase after it. Perhaps they were wary of news getting back to Dryton too soon. I’m not sure.”
“If they did steal the gold on the second night, why try to kill me a few nights later?”
Rafe shook his head. “Again, I have no answers. Maybe Tad had enough stomach for theft but not for murder. So then Dobson tried to murder you on his own and when it went wrong, Tad lied about his involvement to save himself.”
“If Dobson had killed me without raising an alarm, then he and Tad might have taken the chest out of the inn, but then emptied it and abandoned it. Everyone would still think the gold was just stolen. But they would have been able to run away much faster—because they were actually unburdened. Then they’d go back to where they’d hidden the gold once the search for them died down.”
“That’s plausible. But there’s no proof.”
“Does proof matter at this point?”
“I’d like to know the truth,” said Rafe, “or at least enough of it to explain my own innocence.”
She frowned. “Why should anyone blame you?”
“Why not? Otto will seek to blame someone once he gets word of the loss. And I rode away from the skirmish after the empty chest was discovered…taking along his daughter-in-law.”
“I see your point,” Angelet said, “but I am also your defense. I will explain that I kept the key the whole time, and that everything you did was to protect the chest, and me.”
Rafe gave her a skeptical look. “Women aren’t considered suitable witnesses in a court. Particularly not beautiful, rich, unmarried women who travel in the company of the accused man for days on end.”
“Oh.” He was right. “Then we’ll just have to ensure that doesn’t happen. We’ll both find somewhere safe.”
“And where in all England would that be, my lady?”
Angelet sighed. “I know not. But there must be a place, and we will find it.”