The Miracle Thief Page 23

  “No.”

  “Then I shall have to come there for you.”

  I stood. “You did not help me in Rouen. You cannot help me now.”

  “I have no wish to help you. I want only to keep you safe.”

  “If you let me go, I shall be as safe as ever you wish. You were the one who urged me to trust myself to Providence. That is what I am doing.”

  His eyes narrowed as if he suspected me of mischief. “How?”

  “I am going to wed myself to God.”

  His brow lifted.

  “I cannot see how that would displease Him or Saint Catherine, and if I am married to God, then I cannot marry the Dane.”

  “Even the Almighty is not so long-suffering that He could gain much satisfaction in becoming your bridegroom.”

  Had I once thought it pleasant that this knight offered to speak to me? I changed my opinion. “You can have no say in the matter.”

  His jaw tightened.

  I lifted my skirts and began walking through the underbrush, taking care to keep the bushes between Andulf and myself.

  He spurred his courser into motion, but my palfrey bent its head to nibble at another bit of grass. As I kept walking, he tried again with the same result. Then he made a sort of clucking sound, and the creature fairly gamboled after him.

  Had I not already decided it for a devil’s spawn?

  If only I could figure out how to get rid of Andulf. Then I could get myself well and truly gone, with the count’s men no more the wiser. Which made me wonder… “The count’s men passed some time ago. How did they know where to find me?”

  Andulf’s lips collapsed into a straight, firm line.

  “You did not guess.”

  “I did not need to, my lady.”

  He’d been told then! And only one person knew of my plans. “Hugh was not to tell. He swore he would not tell.”

  “That whelp? He did not want to.”

  I could not keep a blush from staining my cheeks. “What did they do to him?”

  “Did he pledge you his love?”

  “What did they do!”

  “Why do you care?”

  “They did not hurt him?”

  “Not very much.”

  I had not meant for Hugh to bear any consequence for my decision. I had not meant for any of this to happen at all! “Whose man are you? Why do you continually align yourself with the count’s interests?”

  “The princess had gone, and it was I charged with her keeping. What should I have done? Waited there until December, so I could tell your father I had lost you?”

  “Yes!”

  “It’s my reputation at stake, along with your fair head.”

  “You’ve found me. I am safe. And now I would thank you to be on your way.”

  “And leave you here alone? When the sun will soon be setting?”

  Lifting my chin, I turned my head from him and walked on. “I would not wish to be you when the Danish chieftain hears you lured me out into some deserted wood.” Though it caused me no little shame to even think of perpetrating such a false report, I knew it would not take much to create the story, and very little effort to push it into motion.

  Chancing a glance at him, I saw his face flush. When he answered, his words were stiffly spoken. “Nor would I wish to be you when your father finds out you have deliberately chosen to disregard him.”

  In my anger, my pace had quickened. In my indignation, I failed to guard my steps, and so my next one was placed squarely into a hole set some good way beneath the ground. My foot twisted as pain shot up my ankle. But I did not wish to give Andulf reason to gloat, and so I continued on as if it were of no importance, even though my ankle begged me to reconsider.

  “Look here. If you will not ride your horse, then ride mine.” Andulf had stopped both of them and was extending his hand toward me.

  Gritting my teeth against the pain, I refused his offer, keeping instead to my path, albeit much more slowly. I kept my attentions fixed to my gait, trying to make it seem as if I did not yearn to cry out with every step.

  “What is it you are trying to accomplish?”

  If he were so set on conversing, then why should I not stop, for just a moment, to oblige him? I halted, leaning heavily on my other foot. There! Sweet relief. “If you must know, if you cannot guess, I wish to be freed from my obligation to marry the pagan.”

  “Which is why the canon was sent to the abbey for Saint Catherine’s relic.”

  “And the Danes sent along with him! Tell me: do you expect they will inquire docilely of the abbess and then wait with patience to hear what she will decide?”

  He snorted.

  “I wished to inquire, to pray, to beg for divine guidance in the matter. To assure myself what I undertook was in accordance with heaven’s will. But the Danes are no respecters of our faith. They will simply steal it.”

  He shrugged.

  “They are going to steal me. So I have decided to make my own freedom.”

  “Freedom! Who are you to speak of freedom? I tell you this: no man on this earth is free. Every peasant bows to his knight, and every knight to his lord, and every lord to his king, and even the king himself bows to God. Who are you to want what none of us ever has one hope of having?”

  I walked on, and still he followed by the road.

  “Who are you to even think you have the right to demand such a thing?” His voice was tinged with outrage.

  I gave no answer. Indeed, I feared I could not open my mouth without loosing a scream.

  When he next spoke, it was in the sardonic tone with which I was familiar. “Are you planning to sleep this night, or are you going to keep walking?”

  I kept walking.

  ***

  I walked until the sun went down, and then I could walk no longer. Not without lurching. As well, my stomach had long since tired of being empty. I stopped at a convenient boulder, pulled Hugh’s pouch from my girdle, and set about eating a meager meal of bread and a slim slice of cheese.

  The knight dismounted, tied up the horses, and then rousted about gathering wood. Once he sparked it to a flame, he unsaddled his horse and my own, spread the caparisons upon the ground, and then got out his own meal: a pouch of smoked meat, a large red apple, some bread and cheese, and a costrel of wine.

  He raised his cup in my direction. “Do you wish to join me?”

  In fact I did. Even more than envying his food, I envied the warming flames of his fire. But now that I had stopped walking, I could not conceive of the unbearable pain standing once more would require. “No.”

  He looked at me then, as if daring me to change my mind. I wanted to, dear God, how I wanted to! But even if I did, how would I get myself over to him? I was no longer certain I could walk, even if I wanted to. So I ignored him and went on making the best of my poor meal.

  By then my ankle felt as if it had become a sausage ten sizes too large for its casing. I did not dare to move it. I did not dare to hardly breathe.

  “Are you going to ask me to help you?”

  I looked up at him, across the fire. He was watching, eyes knowing. He held my gaze for a long moment before dropping it to my ankle.

  “I do not know of what you speak.” I wished the pain did not sear so.

  “You have so little faith in me then?”

  The accusation shamed me. “Faith seems to be a thing in which I am decidedly lacking of late.”

  “Faith, my lady, only means knowing when you have come to the end of your own efforts. And faith needs only the barest permission to begin its work.”

  Is that not what I had realized when I had asked to appeal to Saint Catherine? But then the archbishop and the count and the Danes had crumpled up my poor hopes and thrown them all away. “And what if there is nothing—no one—to have faith in?�
� Tears began to leak from my eyes before I could stop them. And once they started, they would not cease.

  Andulf began to busy himself with poking at the fire, though he cast a darting look at me now and then.

  The misery of being found, the pain of my ankle, the injustice of my having chosen for myself a spot just beyond the reach of the fire’s warmth conspired to undo me. I curled into myself, seeking to bind up all those offenses to keep them from tearing a hole through my soul. “I fear.” The words came out not so much as a statement, but as a plea.

  He paused in his doings for a moment. “We all fear, my lady.”

  We all fear. As I contemplated his response, I came to the knowledge that the most reasonable act would be to simply turn around, go back to Rouen, and abandon myself to despair. But I could not do even that. I could do nothing. I had ruined my ankle, and now I could not even depend upon myself. “Help me. Please, help me.”

  He came swiftly, dropping to his knees before me, taking up my foot with hands too gentle for one so large. Though his fingers probed with the lightest of touches, at my heel, my ankle’s bone, and farther up on my calf, they left no little agony in their wake. And when he suddenly pushed my foot up toward my knee, I could not help but scream for mercy’s sake. It echoed in the wood as bats rose from the trees and flitted away into the night.

  “It’s not broken, my lady. It’s just been overbent.”

  He slipped my shoe back onto my foot. And then he picked me up and carried me over to the fire. After settling me on my caparison, he handed me a strip of meat. “We should seek an inn before our return to the palace. There your foot could be rested.”

  “No.”

  He did not seem surprised by my answer, only folding his mouth into a grim frown. “Then you should sleep.”

  “And what will you do?”

  He rose from the fire and stepped back, outside of the reach of its light. “Try to keep you from being molested or murdered.”

  I would like to say I stayed awake and provided for him some sort of company, but it did not take long for sleep to find me; for the first time in many days, I did not have to sleep alone.

  ***

  The sun rose in jest the next morning, bringing neither light nor warmth with its presence. A mist had spread through the air before dawn, cloaking the road and frosting the grasses.

  The knight shared some bread with me and then sat me on my horse. But he did not give the reins to me; neither did he mount his courser. “If I may be so bold as to ask? What is your plan?”

  “To live.”

  “A worthy undertaking.” He lifted his eyes from the reins to me. “But do you have any specific instructions, my lady?”

  I glanced away.

  “Any abbey in particular you were riding for?”

  I said nothing.

  “So you just…you ran away? Without any plan? In no certain direction?”

  “Did Hugh not tell you that as well?”

  “You told me yourself you were bound for a nunnery. He told me you were headed north, though he would not say to where.”

  I cheered my friend’s loyalty. “My father must be told the Count of Paris and the archbishop have betrayed him.” Perhaps I could convince Andulf to deliver the message on my behalf, and then I would be free to travel to the abbey on my own. “They conspired in advance with the Dane in order that he ask for my hand and—”

  “I know.”

  “You—you know?”

  “Yes.”

  I had thought myself alone in all of this. A feeling of amity infused me, and hope warmed my breast. “So you have sent for my father, then?” Had I fled in vain? Had I sacrificed the good faith of poor Hugh for no purpose?

  He shook his head.

  “You know all this, and you’ve done nothing?”

  “What is it I’m to have done?”

  “You’ve said nothing? Sent no messages?”

  “I have been watched since I first came to Rouen. As have you.”

  “You’ve men watching you, and yet you followed me. They will know by now you have left them. They will soon turn back to find you.”

  “They know I’ve come to find you. They let me come.”

  “They let you? But why?”

  “I’m to bring you back to the count.”

  “Back to—! But you’re my father’s man.”

  “Yes. And his good name and your safety depend upon your keeping the agreement he has sworn to uphold.”

  “An agreement made through treachery! They are to be honored for their deceit, and I am to be sacrificed to uphold it?”

  “You’re to be sacrificed to uphold your father’s honor.”

  “Then I will thank you to leave me here, tell them you could not find me, and be gone.”

  “I cannot.”

  “I shall tell no one I ever once encountered you. If you do not speak of it, and I do not speak of it, then no one shall ever know.”

  “My lady, the best thing you can do is to return to Rouen.”

  “No!”

  He grimaced. “Perhaps I misspoke. What I should have said is that I think the only thing you can do is return to Rouen.”

  “No.” My whisper was as hollow as a reed. “Do not make me go.”

  “Your father has made an agreement. The count awaits. And so do the Danes. What else is there to do?” He pulled my horse over toward his courser and mounted. But when I reached for the reins, he would not give them to me.

  “Am I to be taken back as if I am your prisoner?”

  “No, my lady. As if you are my charge.”

  “I command you to release me.”

  He turned and looked at me over his shoulder, a sad smile on his face. “I have pledged my allegiance to your father. I am not yours, my lady, to command.”

  I did not fancy being led about as if I were some addle-brained girl too dull to know her own way. “At least do not parade me about. Spare me the indignity of that.”

  He passed a sideways glance at me.

  “Let us not stop at the taverns or the inns. I would not have it said the princess was being led as if she needed a nursemaid.”

  He did not answer, but late that morning, he slowed his courser as we passed a clearing in the wood. “Will this do?”

  “For what?”

  “For a place to take a repast. I’ve little liking for the count’s men either.”

  He had decided to listen to me then! “Perhaps… Can we stop away from the road? If I must be returned, then I wish for you to do it and not the count’s men.”

  Another look he gave me, as if wishing to take my measure.

  I stared right back.

  He steered us past the clearing until we found trees once more, which screened us from the road. There he unfastened his mantle from his shoulders and spread it upon the ground before lifting me from the horse. There we ate, and there we rested, and when he moved to lift me, I stayed him with a hand to his arm. “I’ve need of a few moments in the wood. If you could help me to stand…”

  He ignored me, lifting me into his arms instead.

  “I do not think—”

  “I know what you need, my lady.” He set me down some distance farther, where the trees were thicker. “I will return at your call.”

  I watched him retreat before I made any move. The trick would be to work my way back around to my horse before he decided to return for me on his own. I tested my ankle, finding it not much improved. I would simply have to do what I must quickly; this opportunity was too providential to ignore.

  Taking great care with the placement of my feet, keeping one eye trained on the knight’s broad back, I prayed I would be fleet enough to accomplish my goal.

  My horse was in my sights when I first took note of a rustling in the wood behind me.

/>   Fearing it was Andulf, and not daring to slow my pace, I pressed on. Two paces, three. I had not much farther to go when I heard a distinctive grunt and snuffle, those sounds that struck fear in the heart of every mortal man.

  CHAPTER 26

  Slowly, I turned.

  Not ten paces from me was a boar. Its long, protruding snout and large upward-curving teeth were unmistakable.

  Behind me, the horses snorted, pawing at the ground. So close I was to freedom, but I feared an attempt to reach them would only provoke the boar into charging.

  The beast lowered his head. With a snorting squeal, he started toward me, and I knew my attempt at escape was finished. I only hoped I would live to see the morrow. As I closed my eyes, not willing to witness my own death, a hand seized me about the collar of my mantle and tossed me aside.

  I landed on my belly, struggling for breath, as I watched the boar head toward the horses. But just as I whispered a prayer of thanks, the beast changed his course and turned instead toward me.

  Pushing my fists against the earth, I scrambled to my knees. And then, realizing I hadn’t the ability to save myself, I threw my arm over my face and prepared for death.

  The beast’s breath scorched my face, its grunts assaulted my ears, and then, as I steeled myself for its attack, it fell into my lap.

  “Sweet Jesus!”

  And it just…lay there.

  Breath caught twixt my soul and my throat; I hardly dared move. When I gathered the courage to look down, the boar gave one last gasp, and then its eyes rolled back into its head as its lifeblood poured out onto my tunic from a gash in its belly.

  Andulf staggered into view, took it by the ears, and drew it away from my lap onto the ground.

  “Is it?” Was it dead?

  “He—” Andulf’s mouth was working to form the next word, but then his face went white, and he collapsed beside me.

  I waited for him to recover himself, but he did not move. Nor did he open his eyes.

  He had saved me, and now I was free! Scrambling to my feet, I gave him wide berth and then limped toward my horse. Grasping the reins, I moved to mount, but then I thought the better of it.

  Had Andulf moved? He wasn’t…he could not be dead, could he?