“You run to meet a ghost,” she said. “I shall come to no harm, believe me.”
She had her way, and he went to open the gate and lower the bridge while she put on a cloak and hood, and filled the wallet with food. She joined him on the causeway, where he stood scanning the woods mistrustfully.
“I would to God I might go with you.”
Her eyes looked into his.
“Your heart goes with me. Bear with that harness, for your bones will ache not a little. And keep good guard.”
He watched her cross the grassland toward the thicket where they had hidden the horse. Woodmere seemed to lack sunlight of a sudden, and his heart felt heavy when the trees hid her.
Nor were Martin’s fears for her safety the mere idle qualms of a man in love. There was a saddling of horses at Troy Castle, and Fulk de Lisle, Roger Bland’s bravo, was shut up with him in my lord’s closet.
Vance’s archer man, who had escaped Martin Valliant’s spade, had come in the night before, after losing his way in the Forest. His tale lost nothing in the telling. Mellis Dale had stabbed the Forest Warden with her poniard, and her paramour, the priest, had then beaten him, and John Bunce, to death. If my lord doubted it, let him send men to the Black Moor, and they would find the bodies.
So Fulk de Lisle had his orders. He was a gay, swashbuckling devil, very handsome, very debonair, a great man with his weapons. He stood before the Lord of Troy, leaning on his sword, his black hair curled under his flat red hat, his sword belt bossed with gold. He wore no armor save a cuirass, and light greaves; the blue sleeves of his doublet were puffed with crimson; his hose were striped red and blue.
“Take thirty men; let them ride in three troops. Go yourself with one troop to the Black Moor; send Peter Rich with ten men to Badger Hill, and Swartz with the rest to Woodmere. I have sent messengers to Gawdy Town. I want the wench and the priest, both of them. And Vance’s body had better be brought in.”